#kotlc secret santa 2022

[camelspit]

@uni-seahorse-572 Hey! I was your secret santa, so heres some qpr finh! Merry Christmas (if you celebrate)! :)

@song-tam

[purplesoup-lad-le]

@devisayliyaa i was your secret santa! i couldn't see many kotlc posts on your blog, so i just drew keefe with nail polish (+biana proud of her work lol) I hope you like it! @song-tam

[corruption-exe]

@abubble125 , I'm your secret santa! merry Christmas!

thank you, @song-tam for hosting this year's secret santa!

tagging @xanadaus bc he was curious

[cogaytes]

Family Remedy

here it is: my secret santa for @ahyesitsshmeegus :D thank you to @song-tam for organizing!

my prompt was to let keefe be happy for once, so here’s a little drabble for an au where elwin and keefe are half siblings. they’re brothers your honor :]

--

Elwin is too young to bear the weight of the world—the weight of his father's expectations—but he does so anyway. The Sencen name holds a certain weight to it, he's been assured, and his actions must reflect that. He mustn't be too loud, too foolish, too stupid. But he holds his head high, like his father, and he shows no weakness, and he gets through the day however he has to.

Elwin is still far too young when he rushes home from the Silver Tower to find his mother on her deathbed. He's by her side, too, when she succumbs three days later. It was a rare illness, the physician tells him, something whose cure was beyond the reach of even the best of elven medicine. Elwin decides from that moment that he will change this. Flashing—the last gift she gave him—makes him especially suited for being a physician, lending itself well to this personal quest. Leaping straight to Foxfire after her planting, he throws himself into the biological studies; he graduates from the elite levels with the promise of an internship under the best of elven physicians. It takes him ten years, but he does manage to find a cure for her illness. No more elven children will lose a parent.

What he does not manage to find a cure for, however, is his father's grief. It changes him. He's sharper, now. More quick to anger. He marries again within six years—a tall woman with a haughty tilt to her chin. The new stepmother, Lady Gisela, doesn't particularly care for Elwin. He doesn't particularly care for her either, and as glares from his father turn into screaming matches and broken vases, he gives up on tolerating either of them. The new house he builds for himself is called Splendor Plains, and it's strange in the most perfect, most Elwin way imaginable. His father will never visit him there.

***

Eighteen years later, Elwin sets foot in Candleshade for the first time in a decade. He takes a moment to adjust his appearance: his hair, tied back in a neat ponytail at the nape of his neck. His tunic, the only one he owns without some sort of animal pattern, carefully selected to best adhere to his father's selective standards of grooming. This is not the time for starting a fight…not if he wants to meet his baby brother.

Keefe is a scrap of a thing, lanky for two years old, with a wide grin plastered across his face and limbs that always seem to end up in places he hadn't meant them to. His energy is boundless, and Elwin feels more than sees his father's frown as the two of them watch him bounce around the room. He doesn't let that stop him from dropping to one knee and meeting Keefe's eyes across the room. 

"Hey," he murmurs. Keefe seems suspicious of him, eyeing him warily as Elwin tries for a smile. "I'm Elwin. Your brother." Though Keefe shrinks away slightly as Elwin brings his arm out from behind his back, his eyes widen at the stuffed gulon. He toddles over and reaches for it. Elwin chuckles. "Like her?" Keefe's toothy smile is more than enough answer. He gently lifts the gulon from Elwin's outstretched hands and runs his stubby fingers over the soft plush. "You want to name her, then?"

Keefe pauses to consider. A wicked smirk slowly grows across his face, and he proclaims, "Mrs. Stinkbottom!" Elwin can't help but laugh, both at Keefe's self-assured declaration and the twin looks of horror on his father and Lady Gisela's faces.

"Absolutely not," Lord Cassius snarls. "Give me that." 

Elwin manages to intercept his father before he gets to Keefe. "Here, Keefe. Let me keep her safe for you." It's a struggle to keep tugging the newly christened Mrs. Stinkbottom from Keefe's grasp as his little brother's eyes fill with tears.

"No!" he yells, "I want her! Give her back!"

Elwin gives him the closest thing to a comforting smile he can manage. He feels a swell of rage rising in his stomach, and it's all he can do to tie it in a knot and shove it back down. Anger won't do him any good. Not in front of Keefe. Not right now.

"I'll take care of her for you," he says instead, "I promise." Keefe shoots him a glare full of spite and suffering. He storms from the room, and Elwin can hear his stomps echo as he unleashes the full force of his fury on every single stair in the place. For a moment, he and his father and his stepmother only stare at each other.

"What were you thinking? Bringing him foolish crap like that?" growls Lord Cassius at last.

Elwin takes another deep breath, and when he speaks again, it’s in the mildest tone he can muster. "Stuffed animals aren't foolish. I still carry mine around."

"And you shouldn't; it's improper—"

"Honestly, do you let the kid have any sort of—"

"Elwin Sencen," his father thunders.

When Elwin smiles, it's cold as ice. "It's Heslege now, actually."

Cassius Sencen is speechless. For once in his life. "What—since when?"

"Since I moved out." It's hard to keep satisfaction from bleeding through in the edges of his voice, so he gives in to the urges to gloat. "Now, it's been wonderful catching up with you, but I really must be off. I've been appointed Physician at Foxfire, you see, and it comes with all sorts of important duties. Gisela, you're a royal pain as always." With all the dignity he can muster, he sweeps from the room.

***

Elwin doesn't see Keefe again until he's a Level One. He barely recognizes his little brother when he bounds into the Healing Center, all wheeling arms and legs and self-assured smirks. But his energy slows to a dull murmur when he locks eyes with Elwin. 

"Oh," he mutters, staring at the ground, "it's you."

Elwin can't help but smile, despite the teen's sullen attitude. "Hey, Keefe." Keefe doesn't look up, so Elwin busies himself studying his brother's form for any sign of whatever injury's brought him here. He also can't help but check for bruises. Just in case. "So, what happened?"

"What?" Keefe finally raises his head, but still refuses to meet Elwin's gaze.

"To bring you here. You're injured, right?"

"Oh. That." Keefe shuffles his feet. "My Elven History session was really boring and I didn't want to go." And Elwin would hear the lie in his voice without noticing the way he hid his left hand behind his back.

"Show me." Keefe produces the offending hand grudgingly. Elwin whistles at the long, deep cut slicing across his palm. "How'd you manage that one?"

"Universe." Keefe's grunted answer is all Elwin needs; he's treated more than enough mishaps from that particular class. Bustling between shelves and cabinets, Elwin searches the racks for the particular ointment he likes to use for cuts from broken glass.  He stops to give Bullhorn a scratch under the chin before he returns to his patient.

"Oh, have you met Bullhorn?" he adds, hoping to distract Keefe as he applies the gooey purple paste to Keefe's cut. It's not enough, though, to prevent Keefe's subtle wince at the initial sting of the ointment. 

"Bullhorn?" asks Keefe, and the banshee yawns at the sound of his name. "Whoa, you've got a pet banshee? That's awesome!" And this, this is the bright Keefe Elwin knows and loves.

Elwin grins. "Right?"

"How long've you had him?" He reaches for Bullhorn, and to Elwin's shock, Bullhorn lets him pat his head.

"'Bout a year. He likes you, you know. Doesn't usually let anyone but me touch him."

Keefe rips his hand away as if he's been burned. "Oh."

"Say, Keefe, how're you—"

But Keefe is already getting up and backing towards the door. "Thanks for the stuff for my hand. See you." He turns and sprints from the room before he's even made it over the threshold.

***

Keefe doesn't come back to the Healing Center for the rest of the year, and all of Level Two. It's not till the beginning of Level Three that he comes in dragging Sophie Foster. Keefe with Sophie is the most comfortable Elwin's ever seen him in his own skin, and Elwin is grateful for her—both for that, and for bringing Keefe back into his life with her frequent Healing Center trips.

Midterms brings a more unpleasant family member back into his life: Cassius Sencen. He's just passing through the hallways when he overhears the elf. He's yelling—of course he's yelling—at Keefe, who stares at his shoes with hunched shoulders. He's not quite cowering, but he's not quite standing tall and defiant either. Gisela stands next to him, and Elwin can catch her murmuring something about "A 92 isn't so—" and "Let the boy be."

It's not even a conscious decision he makes to intervene. With three long strides, he's planted himself in between his father and his little brother. He's several inches shorter, but he'll be damned if he can't manage a threatening glare nonetheless. "Well, Father dearest. What's going on here, exactly?"

"These are Sencen matters," Cassius spits, and it's obviously meant to be some sort of great, crushing blow. Elwin brushes it off like nothing.

"You're screaming at my brother in the middle of the hallway." Elwin cocks his head, an unspoken challenge lingering in the air. "I'd like you to stop, please."

Cassius recoils at that last word, barbed as it was meant to be. "I can speak to my son any way I like."

Elwin keeps his voice soft. Dangerously so. "Allow me to rephrase that: Fuck. Off. You treat Keefe like shit, and you don’t deserve to breathe the same air as him, let alone speak to him that way. He will not be burdened by your presence any longer, as he and I are leaving. Goodbye." And before he can talk himself out of it, he grabs Keefe's arm and marches him off to the Healing Center, leaving Cassius and Gisela sputtering in their wake.

He knows he's done the right thing, though, when Keefe flips his parents the bird as they hurry away.

***

"Are you okay?" is the first question Elwin asks Keefe when they arrive at the Healing Center.

"Yeah," Keefe breathes, as if he can't believe what he just saw happen. "That was amazing."

Elwin chuckles. "It certainly felt good."

"The looks on their faces," Keefe crows, punching the air with both fists. He flops backwards onto a cot, staring dreamily at the ceiling.

"What was he so mad about?"

"Eh, my midterm grades. Got a 92 in Elven History."

Elwin shakes his head, burying his face in his hands. "That's an excellent grade."

"Not enough for Daddy dearest," Keefe mutters darkly. He tosses a pillow at the wall. Elwin catches it as it bounces off.

"Believe me, I know," he says gently. "I grew up with him, same as you." Keefe looks away. "I'm sorry, Keefe. I should have been there."

"Doesn't matter. He would've kicked you out anyway even if you'd tried to visit." But the hunch to his shoulders tells a different story. Elwin reaches for him.

"I should have been there anyway." Keefe freezes at his touch—doesn't pull away, but doesn't lean into it either. "I'd like to be there starting now, though, if that's okay."

His little brother lets out a breath, and then shifts on the cot, letting Elwin's hug take his weight for him. "Okay," he breathes, and wraps his arms around Elwin.

They sit there, for a moment, just enjoying getting to hug one another for the first time. Then Elwin gets up. "I have something for you."

"Is it a tunic that says Lord Awesomeness? Or a stink bomb? Or a—" His guesses are cut off by the sight of the green, sparkly gulon plushie Elwin pulls out of the cabinet. "No way—" he breathes.

"Remember Mrs. Stinkbottom?" 

Keefe reaches for her, and Elwin's heart warms watching his brother trace his fingers over her the way he had that first night. "You kept her?"

Elwin's mouth opens to reply, but the hot tears suddenly filling his eyes nearly prevent the words from getting out. "Of course. She's yours, now. Always was, always will be."

"Dad won't let me have her," Keefe mumbles.

"Keefe, you think I'm letting you go back there?" 

The other boy gapes at him. "He'll be mad, and—"

"I just told him to fuck off; he's already mad enough." Keefe manages a laugh at that reminder. "But it doesn't matter, Keefe. I don't want you in his home anymore." His brother mumbles something. "Sorry?"

"Haven't got anywhere else to go," Keefe repeats, louder this time, and Elwin's heart just about breaks.

"Move in with me," he begs fiercely, "come live with me at Splendor Plains. You and Mrs. Stinkbottom both." 

Keefe raises his eyes to meet Elwin's, filled with a fragile sort of hope. "Really?"

"Of course." Elwin pulls him into another hug and Keefe melts into the touch, resting his head on his brother's shoulder despite being the taller of the two, and after a moment Elwin feels tears soaking through his tunic. Mrs. Stinkbottom is still clutched tightly in Keefe's right hand. And Elwin holds him, content just to have his brother in his arms.

After a moment, Keefe giggles softly.

"What?" Elwin asks. 

A wicked grin spreads across Keefe’s face. "Let me be there when you tell Dad."

Elwin tries for a wry smile. "I can try to make that happen." Meeting Keefe's eyes, he ruffles his hair, and his brother yelps in mock-indignation.

"Hey, Elwin?" he asks after a second.

"Yeah?"

"Love you."

His smile is wet, but Elwin still manages, "Love you, too."

[squishmallow36]

You're My Aurora Borealis

@purplesoup-lad-le You were my Secret Santa! I tried to add as much Dizznee and Fedex as I possibly could in this thing. I don't think there was much more that could've been added. This fic takes place within the Keeper of the Lost Prepositions Universe, but it isn't necessary and the spoilers are very very light if you haven't finished it.

And @song-tam you suffered through my ramblings because I couldn't talk about my ideas with everybody!

Word Count: 5.4k

Tw: food, light swearing, Alden mentions, the end is probably really cheesy

Taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed!): @stellar-lune @gaslight-gaetkeep-gayboss @kamikothe1and0lny @nyxpixels @florida-preposterously @poppinspop @uni-seahorse-572 @solreefs @theseasonismerrybutimnot @rusted-phone-calls @when-wax-wings-melt @ahyesitsshmeegus @good-old-fashioned-lover-boy7 @dexter-dizzknees @abubble125 @hi-imgrapes @callum-hunt-is-bisexual @xanadaus @callas-pancake-tree @hi-my-name-is-awesome @katniss-elizabeth-chase @cherryys-stuff @arson-anarchy-death

On Ao3 or below the cut!

    Fitz shivers. 

    It might be the cold, it might be the gnawing pit of dread in his stomach, or it might be Dex’s hand clasped around his own. 

    A gust of wind rushes past, chilling Fitz’s already frozen fingers clasped around too many tubs of plastic containers filled with mallowmelt and other sugary goods. 

    Yeah, it’s probably the weather. 

   Rimeshire is pretty much always freezing--a byproduct of the latitude of the Gloaming Valley--despite Elvin thermoregulators. There’s even several centimeters of snow on the ground, filthy from the months the majority of it has spent there. 

    The last time the grass could be seen, Fitz was still speaking to his father. 

    His eyes flicker to the horizon, just beginning to turn orangish with a sunset, small stratus clouds reflecting the warm tones, making him want to sit here on the porch and watch it. 

    Instead, his stomach growls, making the fear he’s trying to ignore that much more apparent. And studying the fine silver details around Rimshire’s door is quickly becoming insufficient. 

    Fitz feels a soft squeeze on his hand, dragging him back to reality. And by reality he means Dex’s dimples. 

    That’s certainly one way to simultaneously calm him down and cause his chest to tighten at the same time. 

    “Hey,” Dex whispers, barely audible beneath the blood rushing through Fitz’s ears. 

    “Don’t give me that look,” Fitz snaps. 

    “I’m not giving you a look.” Dex closes xor eyes and faces the opposite direction just to prove his point. 

    Fitz rolls his eyes. “Yeah, sure.”

    “Just--just think of it like a normal family dinner. You’ve suffered through several of those before.”

    Fitz forces himself to exhale. “Dex, I know you mean well, but don’t. You know as well as I do that trying to reason either of us off the edge doesn’t work.” 

    “That’s just because I’m good at arguing against you when I don’t want to do something.” 

    “Well, I graduated with Honors from the Keefe Hesledge University of Being a Tosser.”

    “You say that but then you don’t seem to use your degree.”

    Fitz absent-mindedly rolls his ankle. “That’s because I don’t enjoy using it, not because I failed most of my classes.”

    “You know, every time you bring this up I tell you to remind me to see the curriculum the next time we see Keefe, and yet that hasn’t happened yet. I need to see how it let you out.”

    Fitz stops. “...Are you trying to make me mad to distract me from the fact that I am currently standing outside my boyfriend’s house with a copious amount of stress-baked, questionably edible things?”

    Dex blushes. “Yes,” xe lies. At least he’s consistent. 

    “And how well did that plan work out for you?”

    “It was going pretty well, then someone had to figure out my master plan. That was very inconsiderate of you.”  

    Fitz takes a breath. “I apologize in advance for messing up your Gloamhenge. Whatever I inevitably do, I’m sorry.” 

    Fitz watches Dex as xe processes this, trying to find the best way to tell him to shut up without leaving himself open for counterarguments. “You’re gonna have to bring your A game, Fitzy. I have a feeling the Triplets will make it their personal mission to screw everything up the fastest.”

    Fitz decides to give him that. “Yeah, that sounds on brand.”

    “Okay. So we’re good? We’re fine? We’re mildly okayish enough to continue functioning for one evening?”

    Fitz has to hold back a smile. It’s the exact thing they’ve said to each other too many times to be healthy but now it’s lost most of its actual meaning because of semantic satiation--oh, Exile, is he actually learning things from Dex? This is terrifying. 

    “I’m not sure I’d go that far, but sure. It can’t go much worse than a certain dinner with someone.” 

    Dex looks just a little murderous at the reference to Alden. “Is it really necessary to bring that up every single time?”

    “Yes, because it was glorious and you should regret not being there.”

    “Oh, trust me, honey, it would’ve had the same outcome, just way faster.” Dex smiles. 

    Fitz’s heart still flutters a bit, even after however many months it’s been. “And there’s scary!Dex. Lovely. I always love being mildly afraid of you.” 

    “That’s exactly what I’m here for.”

    Fitz fakes a gasp. “Preposition.”

    “Oh, great. Don’t mind me as I pull a Henry David Thoreau.”

    Hey, I told xem about that. I do exist somewhere in his brain. I didn’t expect that. 

    Thoreau basically got angry at society--honestly, mood--so he went and lived in a cabin in the woods for like two years and wrote an infuriatingly dense book. And now he’s like human famous or something because of it. 

    “No, don’t do that! Don’t leave me alone with these people!” Fitz jokes. 

    Dex laughs, knocking on the door. 

    Juline opens it much too quickly to honestly believe she wasn’t eavesdropping, but at least it wasn’t Bex. And if that’s the bar, you know you’re in for a wild ride. 

    Oh, who am I kidding? These are the Dizznees. We knew that coming into this. 

    “Aw, Fitz, you didn’t have to bring anything. Come in, come in.” Juline exclaims, stealing his baked goods from him, probably never to be seen again. It won’t be the first time the Triplets have chewed their way through a plastic container. 

    Wait, no. That was the squirrels getting into the Everglen garbage can. 

    “I tried to stop him, trust me,” Dex says, deadpan. “Also trust me when I say he would be living in a cave on the coast of Lumenaria Island if he didn’t bake.” 

    “I am not as bad as Keefe,” Fitz argues, voice cracking embarrassingly, stripping him of any credibility he could’ve had. 

    “Aren’t you living at Candleshade in an attempt to avoid your father?” 

    “We do not acknowledge that wanker as being biologically related to me unless it’s for comedic purposes,” Fitz snaps.

    Before Dex can come up with a coherent response, the Triplets have seemingly sensed Fitz’s presence as they swarm him, nearly knocking him over. 

    His knee wails in protest at the attack of his ankles and--ow!

    “Did one of you just bite me?”

    The only response is unintelligible screaming. But wait--is Bex laughing harder than before? That little--.

    “I’m here to eat dinner, not to be dinner!”

    Dex turns away to hide the fact that xe’s laughing, but it doesn’t work when his shoulders shake that much, and Juline even has a hard smile. 

    “Speaking of dinner, it’s almost ready, so make yourself comfortable until then. I will be making sure Kesler hasn’t, in my absence, blown up the kitchen.” 

    “Hey, it’s been two whole weeks since then!” Kesler yells from the kitchen over the sound of the vent hood. 

    Juline turns and walks towards the kitchen, yelling, “You haven’t had many opportunities in those two weeks. I don’t trust you!” 

    Fitz smiles. “Hey, that kind of sounds like you after you found out about my relationship--or, more accurately, lack thereof--with recipes.” 

    Dex begins explaining, talking more with his hands than actually talking, “Baking is a chemical reaction, so that means it’s alchemy you can eat, and while you really shouldn’t eat anything in the lab because it all tastes bad anyway--don’t worry, I checked--it’s still a science and that means it needs exactness! Not just, oh, a little baking soda here and, yeah, a little flour there! No! You need order! And structure! Not this absolute madness!”

    “Don’t hurt yourself, love.” 

    The Triplets laugh. 

    “I’ll hurt myself if I want to hurt myself. You can’t tell me what to do,” pouts Dex.

    “You’re not smacking yourself in the eye again, Dex.”

    “That wasn’t my fault. You got me started on the types of Supernovae.” 

    “That was for my Universe final. What else was I supposed to do?”

    “I don’t know--Bex, why are you looking at me like that?”

    She only responds with indecipherable giggling, burying her face in Fitz’s jerkin instead of confronting reality. 

    “Exile, you’re insufferable,” Dex complains. 

    “That’s what I’m here for, Dear Brother,” replies a voice that’d probably be Bex if she wasn’t hiding. 

    Dex and Fitz lock eyes, simultaneously mouthing ‘preposition’ and collapsing into a fit of silent giggles. 

    “Can you maybe not sound like Biana?” Fitz asks the tumor that’s now permanently attached to his leg. 

    “No,” comes her muffled response. 

    “Is your stubbornness by chance genetic?” Fitz asks Dex.

    “Not to my knowledge. What on Earth would make you think that?” Dex asks, trying and failing to hold back a smile. 

    That adorable smile. How the Exile am I supposed to function with those dimples? It’s not fair. 

    Fitz shakes his head, shuffling over to the couch. It takes the same amount to get comfortable as for Juline to call, “Dinner’s ready!” causing a Triplet stampede as they rush to their seats. 

    There’s a lot of yelling, and several alleged thrown elbows. One would think they would have assigned seats by now, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. 

    “Don’t you, I don’t know, want to go reserve your seat?” Fitz asks, still trying to get off the couch. It’s like a black hole. Except it’s dark blue. 

    “I think I threatened them sufficiently this afternoon. It should be fine,” Dex replies.

    I don’t want to know what that means. 

    Fitz’s knee groans as he stands, finding two seats actually next to each other for once. Dex’s threats might have actually worked. That’s scarier than it should be.

    He plops himself down in the right seat so he doesn’t get elbowed by Dex and his left-handedness. 

    Looking around the table, Fitz sees a combination of normal foods and, for lack of a better word, Dizznee foods. 

    The glasses of Lushberry juice are standard enough, as are the mashed carnissa root and umber leaves. 

    But then there’s a solid, opaque pink dish that jiggles when it’s moved and tastes sweet, like fraiseberries, and doesn’t seem to belong on a dinner table. It seems more like a dessert, but then Fitz remembers his baked goods he brought. 

    Yeah, Juline was probably planning on that. 

    The Triplets inhale it like there’s no tomorrow, using butter knives as weapons to keep the others away from it. 

    Then there’s a casserole dish with grated breadfruit, covered in a creamy, stringy, delicious yellow substance that got slightly crunchy on the edges. 

    “Cloudberry?” Juline offers, holding out a bowl of golden-yellow berries. 

    Fitz takes one, ripping off a single drupelet and popping it into his mouth. It bursts with a light pressure, exploding sweet and sour flavours across his taste buds. 

    He’s going to be kidnapping that bowl later. Might eat the glass itself. 

    Fitz glances over to Dex to find xem watching him and smiling. For someone who isn’t a telepath, xe’s very good at knowing what he’s thinking. Annoyingly good. 

    Bex leans over her mountain of food, butter knife grasped in her hand. “So, Fitzy…”

    “Congratulations, I am already afraid.”

    “Is Biana by any chance of mercy single?”

    This is the third time you’ve asked this week. Do you think I wouldn’t keep you updated?

    “Before I answer that, you have to be aware of the fact that Bi doesn’t tell me anything. So, to my knowledge, yes. But my knowledge is pretty much zero.”

    Bex swears, stabbing her knife into the container of butter. “Any update on Amy?”

    “If there was, I would have held a whole press conference the millisecond I heard anything at all,” Dex answers tiredly. 

    “Nanosecond,” Bex corrects. 

    “Planck time,” counters Dex. 

    Bex considers that. “No physics allowed in this house.” 

    “Then have fun as all your atoms explode because the strong force isn’t holding your atomic nuclei together anymore.”

    “I will.” Bex crosses her arms, but only long enough to realise that prevents her from shoveling food in at light speed. 

    “No talk of exploding anyone at the dinner table!” Juline reprimands. “Not after last year!”

    Fitz leans over to Dex, whispering, “What happened last year?”

    “Just put that on the list of things I say I’ll explain and then never end up doing.”

    Fitz nods. “Gotcha.” 

    The room is oddly silent for a moment--the longest possible length of time in the Dizznee household it seems--before Kesler asks, “So, Fitz, are you ready for the Gloamhenge quiz tonight?”

    “There’s a quiz? Oh, what am I saying? Of course there’s a quiz. Where else would Dex get it from? Oh, great, preposition. But my point still stands.” 

    “At best, it sits,” Dex mumbles, and Fitz glares at xem. 

    Kesler laughs. “Relax, I’m just messing with you.”

    “...I should make that a thing next year though.” Fitz holds his head in his hands as Dex writes that down. 

    “Do you see what you’ve done? You’ve given him ideas. There’s nothing more dangerous,” Fitz grumbles. 

    “No, Dex. You would make all the questions incredibly specific and then you would cackle the entire time we were struggling to answer them,” Kesler predicts very accurately. 

    “No, I wouldn’t,” Dex argues. Some might even say whines. 

    “Yes, you would,” Rex states. “You’ve given me like ten programming pop quizzes and that’s exactly what you do.”

    Dex puts xor hands on xor hips. “Fine then. How about you make me a quiz. Show me how it’s done.”

    Fitz places a hand on Dex’s, gently tugging it away, quietly promising, “I’ll make you a quiz. I know you have a very unhealthy relationship with Kahoot and I will very much enable it to the best of my abilities.”

    “Thank you,” Dex says softly, smiling just enough to show a single dimple and laces their fingers together. 

    Fitz melts into a puddle of Fitz-goo. This is incredibly unfair and it should not be allowed. 

    “Hey, Dex! Did you tell him about the cinnamon competition?” One of the Triplets--probably Lex because they’re the one that hasn’t caused a catastrophe yet today--asks. 

    “I told you, I’m not adding that to the official Google Doc of festivities. It was a one time thing, and I’d like to keep it that way. Let it live in our memories in its true glory. Don’t spoil it with a sequel. You know those are never as good as the original.”

    “Except for Shrek,” Lex inconveniently points out. 

    “Shrek is an outlier and should not have been counted.” Dex looks at Fitz. “And, no. You don’t get to hear about it. I don’t want to think about it ever again.”

    “What’s so bad?” Lex asks. “I thought sugar and spice makes everything nice.”

    “So does crack though,” Rex chimes in, and Fitz gets the feeling that isn’t the first time that exact exchange of phrase has occurred. 

    “That’s why we host the cinnamon competition. Double the nice. Duh.”

    “Oh. That makes a lot of sense now.” Rex’s attention turns back to the mashed carnissa root on his plate. 

    “And that is why we have a lock on the spice cabinet.”

    “Come on, do you really think a little metal’s going to stop us?” Bex asks. 

    “No. You’d chew through the wood first,” Dex replies like xe’s thought about it at length. Which he probably has. 

    Lex argues, “I’d at least try to pick it.”

    Fitz expects Dex to pull out the good old Yoda quote, but instead xe says, “It’s not a Masterlock. It has to be at least marginally better than absolutely useless.”

    “I can handle it. I’m cool like that.” The moment Lex says that is also the moment that they take a sip of Lushberry juice and cough on it. 

    “Remind me to add that to the very long list of reasons why I’m never getting them a lockpicking kit,” Dex says, taking a bite of an umber leaf. 

    “Does that mean you’ve neglected to get me one for the,” Lex counts on their fingers, “twenty-seventh Gloamhenge in a row?”

    Dex nods as Fitz asks, “Wait, how do those maths work?”

    “Okay, first of all, getting things for other people isn’t even a part of the Gloamhenge tradition. You just want things so you try to add it every time. But, to answer your question, Fitz, there are two a year, one on the spring equinox, and one on the fall equinox. Am I really that bad of a teacher or were you not listening yesterday?”

     “...the latter,” Fitz admits begrudgingly. 

    It’s not my fault, it’s your dimples. I am a very weak man. 

    Dex sighs. “What am I going to do with you?” 

    “Tell me to take notes.” Fitz suggests. “Maybe I’ll be too busy doodling in the margins or maybe I’ll actually listen.” 

    “Or I could threaten a quiz at the end.”

    “Why are we back to this? I’m already under constant threat of pop quiz at any time you’re bored enough to make a Kahoot. Which is at all times!”

    “At least you’re aware of the danger. Not all are so lucky.”

    “You mean Sophie, don’t you?” Fitz guesses. 

    “Mmhmm, yes, exactly, correct, very good. One point of extra credit to be redeemed during the next pop quiz you inevitably fail.”

    “That’s not terrifying at all.” Fitz turns to Dex’s parents. “I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with him for so long.”

    Kesler is laughing, enjoying this almost as much as Bex is, which is saying something. 

    Juline, on the other hand, says, “Xe gets it from his father,” looking pointedly at Kesler. He stops laughing abruptly with a painful sound. 

    “I’m full,” Lex complains, leaning back in their chair. 

    At the same time, Dex and Kesler say, “Hi full, I’m Dad.” They look at each other for a moment before collapsing into a fit of giggles. 

    Juline takes that as an opportunity to start cleaning up the carnage that used to be dinner. And there weren’t any major injuries, so this was a wild success. 

    Fitz tries to stand to help, but gets pushed back down into his seat by Juline. 

    What the--how dare you not let me help? I want to be helpful. Let me be helpful. Anger. 

    Dex manages to pull him away back onto the couch with a disproportionate amount of groaning.

    They sit next to each other with the minimum amount of space between them to avoid Triplet teasing. 

    An alarm goes off, and Fitz checks behind the pillow he’s currently crushing to see if he caused it, but no. It was Dex. 

    “It’s 9:52, officially Nautical twilight. Got until 11:18 until astronomical twilight when we might be able to see something. Even with the new moon and forecast for tonight.”

    “What are you going on about with all these different twilights?” Bex asks from somewhere Fitz can’t see. “We collectively decided to block those.”

    “You’re thinking of the book and movie series with Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn. Why do I know that? Scientific twilight definitions are civil twilight, which is still bright and immediately after sunset, nautical twilight, which is the pretty one with a dark sky and a bright orange ring near the horizon, and astronomical twilight, which is only slightly brighter than night,” Dex explains. 

    “Of course you know those. Was it on a Universe exam or does it just live in your brain for no good reason?”

    Dex smiles. “Take a wild guess.”

    Fitz sighs. “Why do I even ask anymore?”

    “I really don’t know, you should know better by now,” answers a mysterious voice Fitz is about seventy percent sure belongs to Lex.

    “Rude!” Fitz calls to the empty air. He doesn’t know where the Triplets have gone, and he’s not over excited to find out. 

    Juline comes back from the kitchen after loading all the dishes into the dishwasher, one of the few gadgets in the house that wasn’t built by Dex, sitting on the opposite end of the couch. 

    “How’s the sun’s activity doing? I know last fall wasn't a great show.” 

    “It’s doing its thing, exploding all over the place. As it does. Throwing particles everywhere. Looking pretty good.”

    What? It’s literally nighttime. Why do we need to monitor the sun?

    “Fitz, would you like an explanation?” Dex asks softly. 

    “Well, considering that you enjoy explaining things to me like I’m a five year old--which I am, more often than not-- so I’ll go with yes.”

    “You better take notes this time. I’m not going through my presentation again for at least six months. I will find other lecture topics if you need a condescending explanation before then.”

    Fitz pulls out the notes app on his Imparter without having to ask for a tutorial, a major accomplishment. 

    Dex begins, “Okay, so. Around the equinoxes, one of which is today if you weren’t aware, the Northern Lights are really bright. Do we know what those are?”

    “Are you going to go into extreme levels of detail regardless of my actual answer?” Fitz guesses. 

    “You betcha. How’d you know? Basically, the sun is a mass of incandescent gas that is just, like, constantly throwing a fit. Sometimes that fit is directed at the Earth--it’s actually really similar to pulsars and neutron stars now that I think about it--anyway, because the ionized particles are, well, ionized, they’re deflected by the Earth’s magnetic field into the atmosphere at the poles. Sometimes the sun throws a really big tantrum called a Coronal Mass Ejection, or CME, and then the humans have to deal with things like the Carrington Event.”

    “Hang on a second, I can only type so fast. I’m not good at typing like you.”

    “I’m not good at typing, just pretending that I am.” Dex pauses, waiting for Fitz’s thumbs to stop moving. “The Carrington Event is the name for this really strong CME like a hundred and fiftyish years ago and it messed up pretty much all much tech that existed at the time. There wasn’t much, but telegram lines weren’t pleased. And auroras were seen all the way to the Equator. That’s when you’re going to want to draw a giant arrow from aurora to the definition.”

    Fitz nods. 

    “In the northern hemisphere, it’s called the Aurora Borealis and in the southern hemisphere, it’s called the Aurora Australis because Latin is like that.”

    “Hang on, let me write that down. Spelling is difficult.”

    Especially when the keyboard switches to Latin letters like Human English uses instead of Elvin Runes in the middle of a sentence. But it’s not like I can ask for help. I’ll figure it out later. 

    “They translate to ‘north dawn’ and ‘south dawn’ but that’s not really important.”

    “And yet you still felt the need to tell me.”

    “What else did you expect from me, eh? Anyway, like I said, auroras tend to be most visible near the Equinoxes. You’d think they’d like the winter solstice, but I digress.”

    “Maybe the sun particles don’t like travelling the extra distance because the Earth goes like this,” Fitz holds his arm up at an angle that is most certainly not the angle of the Earth’s axial tilt, but it’s a good enough approximation.

    Dex points to xemself. “I don’t know, I’m not an astrophysicist.”

    “Why not? You should get to work on that.”

    “Go get your doctorate in Elvin History, and then we can talk…Are you literally writing that down?”

    “Yeah. Otherwise I’m going to forget.”

    Dex sighs, mooshing into Fitz’s shoulder. “From the Universe, you have a vague memory of the ecliptic, right? The imaginary line in the sky where the sun and moon and planets and human astrology constellations all fall?” 

    “I would have said no, but you just defined it for me, so it all worked out.”

    “On the Equinoxes, the ecliptic is perfectly East-West because it weeble-wobbles with the seasons. That fact is very helpful if one wants to make a calendar but one doesn’t have access to the internets. So you put up some giant rocks in a circle marking where the sun is and when it lines up again six months later, you know it’s an equinox and you can plan for the upcoming winter if you live in a temperate climate.”

    “I thought time was relative.”

    “Leave Einstein out of this conversation. We don’t talk about him.”

    “...okay.”

    “Did you just write down 'stop with the Einstein erasure’?”

    “Yeah.”

    “I--I don’t even know how to react to that. Moving on--”

    Fitz laughs. 

    “--If that circle rock thing I just described sounds familiar, that’s because there’s a big old monument in England that humans don’t entirely understand called Stonehenge and it’s like that. My bet is that it was an elf messing with them, but that’s just my opinion.”

      “Yeah that tracks.”

    “Your spelling is atrocious. Also, why are you in the Latin alphabet? I specifically disabled it. How did you manage to get it back?”

    Fitz shrugs, and Dex chooses to finish xor lecture before fixing the technology for whatever reason. 

    So close yet so far. I should figure out how to fix it myself…which is more likely to result in breaking the whole thing, but I’ll just buy a new one if I get desperate. 

    “Okay, we’re in the home stretch.” Dex promises, but Fitz doesn’t trust him that much. “The human city of Chicago--have you ever been there? Super mega tall building with a name nobody can agree upon, green river both literally and the carbonated beverage, says gym shoes instead of sneakers or whatever, putting ketchup on hotdogs is a punishable offence?”

    “If you think I could tell the difference between the human cities I visited, you’d be mistaken. Maybe pictures could feel vaguely familiar, but there were so many.”

    “Well, Chicago is on a grid system and a consequence of that is that on the equinoxes,  the sun can line up with the tall buildings and it’s called Chicagohenge and it’s supposed to be really pretty. Don’t ask me why I know that. If I knew, I would tell you. It just lives in my brain like that.”

    “Just like so many other things.” Fitz smiles softly, his boyfriend’s seemingly endless well of random knowledge always a source of happiness even when he’s tired. 

    It is decidedly past Fitz’s bedtime, and it’s still another who-knows-how-long before he’ll get to go to bed. Is this what he gets for being a morning person?

    “I know. I have a problem. You’re aware of this fact. I’ve given you many opportunities to run away. It’s not my fault you haven’t taken advantage of any of them.” 

    Fitz puts an arm around Dex, squeezing xem closer. “Stop trying to get rid of me. It hasn’t worked yet and I am progressively getting more stubborn every time you try.”

    “Oh, wow, I did not know that was even possible. Any more Gloamhenge questions before I go into a food coma or are we good?”

    Fitz yawns. “So you eat food then go watch the Northern Lights?”

    “Yeah.”

    “You could have just said that and I would have been fine.”

    “Fitz, how long have you known me? Have I ever explained anything in two sentences or less?”

    “Well, you have told me ‘just go google it, dumbass’ before. Which should still count as one sentence.” 

    “Yeah, that’s fair,” Dex concedes. 

    With that, Dex snuggles deeper into Fitz’s shoulder and Fitz opens up a crossword puzzle to keep xem entertained. 

    Three puzzles and about an hour later, Dex’s alarm goes off once again. 

    “Astronomical twilight! Time to migrate outside!”

    By ‘migrate outside,’ Dex means ‘take folding chairs into the cold outdoors and sit in them for hours on end until something interesting happens in the sky.’ 

    Even with temperature regulation and a blanket graciously donated by Juline, it’s kind of torturous. 

    “And now we wait,” Dex says, breath condensing in the freezing air and fogging up Fitz’s glasses. 

    “Now, one would think that if one was a telepath who lives in a very northern latitude, one would have invented seat warmers,” Fitz mumbles. 

    Dex instead scoots his chair closer to Fitz, lying xor head on his shoulder and twining their fingers together. “This close enough to a space heater for you?”

    Fitz smiles. “Yes, thank you. I am weak and pathetic in cold temperatures.”

    Dex’s brow furrows. “Then how did you go visit Fintan in his ice prison?”

    “Don’t try to logic your way out of this--”

    Dex laughs, a sound that never ceases to make Fitz’s heart flutter. 

    I am also weak and pathetic in the presence of Dex. This is unfair and I do not appreciate it. 

    “Do you have a gadget that’s going to tell me when the sky’s going to do the thing or am I just going to lose my toes?”

    “No, that’s why we all have to sit out here.”

    “You don’t have, like, a sunroom that would work?”

    “No, that’s why we all have to sit out here,” Dex repeats, more slowly this time.

    Fitz sighs, the giant cloud of water vapor obstructing his vision for a good five seconds. “I thought this was just for tradition reasons. Why must I suffer?”

    “That too. But I am lazy and I don’t want to wake you up at three in the morning to tell you there’s going to be a two second aurora.”

    Before Fitz can respond, he gets hit in the back of the head with the regrettably familiar coldness of a snowball.

    “Alright. Which one of you do I need to Exile?”

    Fitx glances back just long enough to find Bex pointing at Lex while Lex and Rex are pointing to Bex. As many disadvantages as there are to there being three of them, at least they’re all very willing to rat out the culprit at the slightest notice. 

    “Oh, come on, Rex, they’re a froster!” Bex complains. 

    Lex just gestures to the snow-covered ground to prove their point, and it’s a very valid point. 

    Fitz rolls his eyes, turning back to Dex. “I’m surprised you still have snow on the ground. Everglen only gets a little sprinkling once a year, if that, and it more often than not doesn’t even stick.”

    “Exile, that sounds nice. Most of the year, it’s actually too cold to snow but October hits that perfect sweet spot of complete nightmare. It’s like living in a snowglobe. At least March is drier so spring Gloamhenge doesn’t tend to snow. But the stuff on the ground,” Dex kicks a plume of it into the air, “is still leftover from snow season. We like to joke that we have two seasons: construction and snow.” 

    “Everglen has two similar seasons: construction and mosquito. Although those more often than not overlap.”

    Fitz yawns, letting his head rest on Dex’s. 

    “Wake me up if anything interesting happens.”

    “Promise you won’t bite me?” Dex asks. 

    “It’s not my fault I was arguing about something I don’t even remember in my sleep and you had to test whether or not I would bite your hand off and, not to mention, that was one time.”

    Sound really does travel farther in cold air, because Fitz can hear Kesler and Juline laughing from the spot where they decided to set up camp. 

    “Fine. I won’t bite you. I’m going to bed now.”

    “Did you know that sleeping makes you more susceptible to hypothermia?”

    “Well, I’ve got a personal space heater on my arm, so I should be fine.”

    Fitz doesn’t wait for Dex to reply before he lets his tired eyes close as he drifts off to sleep. 

    It’s some sort of magic how whenever he passes out--intentionally or accidentally--at Rimeshire, he doesn’t dream. Other than that one time. But that was an outlier so that doesn’t get to count. 

    A jostling on his shoulder brings an unwilling, groaning Fitz back to reality. 

    What century is it? 

    “Look up,” Dex whispers. 

    It takes a solid three seconds to process what that means, and when Fitz tilts his head up, he’s greeted by beautiful ribbons of greenish light dancing against the night sky. 

    It’s so much greener than he thought it would be. The sky isn’t usually green because of something, something, Rayleigh scattering. 

    A tickle of lavender occasionally flicks through, mostly on the edges. 

    It’s absolutely stunning. 

    Maybe not worth losing his toes, but stunning nonetheless. 

    Fitz’s lips pull into an involuntary smile. 

    This is exactly what a family should be. A group of people freezing to death while the Triplets are screaming in the background--how do they have so much energy?--together not just because it’s tradition but because they genuinely adore one another.  

    The green fades from the sky, and Fitz’s exhaustion returns. His brain probably just realised he’s awake in the middle of the night, and that’s not allowed. 

    “Okay, that was pretty. I’m going back to bed now.”

    Dex laughs, dimples showing. 

    And all Fitz’s sleep-added brain can think is, xe’s more stunning than the aurora. 

[keeper-of-the-lost-dadwin]

The pain of remembering is worth the danger of forgetting

@creetchure I was your secret Santa

Elwin was forgetful. He had been since he was born and would continue to be until his wanderling had sprouted. He could forget just about anything.

He would forget whether or not he had grabbed his schoolbooks. He could misplace things resting in his hand. He would repeat actions over and over again, caught in an endless cycle. He had tried to overcome it; little scribbled notes had once surrounded him. Alas, they weren’t much help when he ended up putting off and consequently forgetting to write down his reminders.

So, he went on being as forgetful as ever, gradually adjusting to it. He resolved to look on the bright side, there was no harm in double checking after all. He had an eternity to live, five minutes searching for a tunic was merely a blink of an eye.

When moving to splendor plains, it was easier to manage. His official doctor stuff was organized throughout the manor. His personal belongings were kept in a separated, homier wing. This meant nothing traveled too far.

One thing he still forgot about was food. He forgot to eat most nights, usually spent refining some remedy or other. This habit was quite enabled by the arrival of one Sophie foster. Even if he ate three meals a day, his food would spoil long before he had reached the end of it.

Food wasn’t sold to be eaten occasionally by questionably healthy bachelors. It was sold to be eaten by families with many stomachs to fill. So he let it rot, only getting rid of it once the odor became unbearable. As neglected as anything else in his home.

Then came a certain Keefe Sencen. He was just a kid, no more than a baby really. His seventeen years were nothing compared to Elwin’s centuries. Yet those 17 years had been filled with so much pain.

None of which he deserved. He was a great kid, as full of mischief as he was. He was kind and smart, despite what his parents had told him. He deserved the world, but Elwin couldn’t give him that, despite how much he wanted to. What Elwin could give him was a gentle, loving home.

And so he did. A home filled with soft words of praise, filled with love and safety. A home where Keefe wouldn’t need to worry about being good enough, where he could just be himself.

Part of that included giving him good food. Fresh fruits and pastries that would fill him up. There would be no more days of forgetting to eat, not with a kid to take care of.

He had come home early one evening, not having to tempt bullhorn from anyone that day. It was the least stressed he’d felt in a while, without the looming threat of death hanging over one of his kids.

He passed keefe getting a snack as he went to his room to change. He glanced at his plate and immediately knew something was off. He ignored it, thinking it was nothing urgent.

He took off his work clothes and put on comfy pajamas. He had no expectation of going to bed anytime soon but getting comfortable a bit early never hurt anyone.

He went to the kitchen to make himself a snack, willing to put off making dinner that much longer. He sat down with his food and greeted his son.

He took a better look at what he was eating. There were bits of mold on the edges of his food. Keefe wasn’t eating with his eyes closed, so he had to have known it was there.

Elwin felt queasy. How long had keefe been eating rotten food? How much had he eaten? Even if he hadn’t gotten sick didn’t mean there wasn’t a risk now. How horrible of a parent did he have to be not to notice it? Why would Keefe be eating rotten food even after Elwin had made sure there was always fresh food in the house?

He realized he had zoned out for too long. He shook himself out of his stupor to actually fix the problem. Worrying wouldn’t help Keefe, wouldn’t make him stop.

“There’s mold on that, darling,” Keefe finally looked up from his plate, startled by the sudden breaking of the comfortable silence. 

“You’ll get sick if you eat that”

He looked like a cornered animal, a guilty expression painted on his face. “I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to eat the rest of the food in the pantry. The kind that wasn’t rotten. I thought you would get mad,”. He looked sheepish, as if this was in any way his fault.

Elwin couldn’t believe it. Keefe thought that Elwin would get mad at him for eating. Eating the food Elwin had specifically gotten for him. How could Keefe believe that? Who had made him believe that taking care of himself was something bad? 

He knew the answer to that of course. He knew all too well how Keefe’s “parents” had treated him. It sickened him to even think of anyone willing to do that, especially to their own son. 

“Did Cassius and Gisela make you eat spoiled food?” He spat out the names, as if that would fix all that they’d done. 

“Yes,” Keefe whispered, as if to keep Elwin from hearing. He curled in on himself, as if trying to hide himself from Elwin’s fury. That only made him angrier, how could Keefe believe he was the one Elwin was mad at? As if Elwin could ever actually be mad at him.

“My dad made it clear that whenever I was grounded, I wasn’t allowed to take food from the pantry. I would keep a small stash of food hidden under my bed. I didn’t know if you would be okay with me taking your food, I figured you wouldn’t care about what you couldn’t eat.” 

Elwin was horrified. “Your parents let you starve?”

“Well, not really. I was smart enough to learn how to get food anyways. Besides, I was only ever grounded for a couple weeks at a time.” He blurted it out so quickly he almost tripped over his words. Whether he wanted to explain it to defend his parents, or just to make Elwin less angry, he didn’t know.

“That’s not okay honey, no matter how easily you were able to actually get food. Your parents can’t starve you. They can’t just not let you have food.”

Keefe nodded, apparently finally understanding. "I’m sorry for worrying you”. 

And back to square one. 

“You have nothing to be sorry about. I should have made it clear that you were welcome to everything in my house, what’s mine is yours.”

Elwin invited Keefe to join him on the couch to watch a cheesy human movie and eat some popcorn. Once the movie finished, they went to bed, having forgotten what had transpired just a few hours earlier. 

That was the end of their food struggles, they managed to fix one of the kinks that came with building your own family. And if Elwin made sure to throw out any food that had gone bad from then on, well, it never hurt anyone to be on the safe side.

@song-tam

[aphelea]

burning on (bronte & oralie)

Hello @axels-corner! I was your Secret Santa this year :) Happy holidays (if you celebrate any) and may your new year be filled with plenty of angsty Councillors!

I offer you some Councillor Bronte and Councillor Oralie friendship (and hurt/comfort), set just after the burning of Oblivimyre. Bronte and Fintan are brothers in this one because I couldn't resist.

Thank you to @song-tam for organizing this event!

Warnings: Discussions of death. (Kenric's and Fintan's)

Bronte locks himself in his castle the next day. 

The rest of the Council are drafting the announcement, a scroll to send to their concerned citizens. Members of the elves Nobility are invited to mourn; the rest, left to wonder about the state of their world in the chaos. 

He wants no part of it, the impersonal funeral or the whispers that are bound to follow all of them, but especially him and Oralie. 

After all, everybody knows who killed Kenric. 

Bronte wishes he didn’t. 

He doesn’t sleep the night after the incident. He only returns home at three in the morning, after all of the Everblaze has been put out and his glittering holy city is half-ashes. But even then, he doesn’t retire to his rooms—he can’t, not when they are ripe with memories of a man whom he should not grieve, with photos on the wall of a family that could never be satisfied. 

So Bronte spends the night pacing, and pointedly not thinking about what he has lost. He pushes away every memory of his friend, every gala spent dealing with Kenric and Oralie’s antics. He suppresses every stray thought of his childhood, of being twelve years old and Fintan fifteen, both unable to control the raging power within themselves. 

He drinks tea. It’s not what he needs to drink, but he figures that he ought to maintain some sense of decorum. 

(That feeling falls apart, come dawn. He needs the strongest medicine that his crystal castle can offer.) 

The next morning, when he knows that he’s expected to show up to the Council meeting, he can’t bring himself to get off of his couch. 

How unprofessional, the weak, rational part of himself says. 

But what is professionalism worth anymore, anyway? Miss Foster had only days ago proven with her Inflicting session that he is far beyond unfit for his position.

(Maybe that’s why he can’t stop grieving a murderer. Maybe the dark matter that controls his brain is making him evil, immoral.)

(Maybe villainy runs in the family.)

So Bronte skips the Council meeting, that day, and waits for someone to scold him. 

Nobody comes. 

He takes a nap on the floor of his kitchen. It’s not comfortable, but he doesn’t deserve comfort. He needs pain, to force him out of his grief. 

It doesn’t work, unsurprisingly. But the slumberberry tea does drown him in darkness. It’s made poorly, but he still manages to sleep an hour, dreamless. 

Until the shrill ringing of his doorbell wakes him, and he lies on the hard crystal tile for a moment, wondering why he ever chose to make his doorbell human music, of all things.

After about five minutes of pointless lying on the ground, he forces himself up and to the foyer. He expects that his colleagues have sent someone to retrieve him, likely believing that he’s overslept or some other, equally forgivable reason for missing work. 

When he opens the door, he finds Oralie, in the same, rumpled, ash-covered gown as yesterday afternoon. 

“Oralie?” Bronte asks. He’s tempted to slam the door in her face, because he can’t deal with her, not now. Not when he still can’t shake the grief and empathy for the man who killed her lover. 

…Almost lover. In everything but name. 

Oralie stares at him from the doorway. Her eyes are wide and red and Bronte can’t help but remember when she’d first been elected to the Council, how Kenric had sworn that she was unfit for the role. How the two of them had spent the next five years arguing over every little thing, firmly believing the other to be an incompetent fool. 

Look at them now, he thinks. So lost in each other’s eyes that they forget their surroundings, all too often. They had been one of Bronte’s few sources of entertainment during tedious meetings. 

“Bronte,” Oralie replies, after a long moment. Her voice is rough and broken, accompanied by a sniffle that she seems determined to hide. 

Bronte stares at her, wondering why she, of all people, would pay him a visit during the working day. “Did they send you here?” he asks. When she frowns, he clarifies, “To attempt to convince me to come to the meeting. I won’t, before you try.”

She laughs, though without any real amusement behind it. “I didn’t go,” she tells him frankly. “I have no use for their pity. They all know what he was to me, I don’t need to hear their condolences.”

Bronte can say mostly the same. But he doesn’t, because he doubts that much of the Council knows of his… unfortunate family relations. 

Though, with the fire went the last of his family, it seems. 

Now Bronte is officially alone. 

Alone, except for his best friend standing in his foyer with bloodshot eyes. The last remaining disgraces. 

“I understand,” he tells her. “And I’m sorry, for what it’s worth.”

“It’s not worth shit,” she replies curtly. “You know that as well as I do.” 

Bronte stares at her, daring her to say more. “Do I, now?” he asks, as calmly as his voice can muster. 

She pauses. “Kenric was your friend as much as he was mine.” At his raised eyebrow, she amends, “Well, you were friends.” 

“Of a sort,” Bronte replies. “His death is tragic, of course, and I grieve his loss like all of us do.” Except you, he doesn’t say, because Oralie hardly needs a reminder of the love that she’s lost. 

Oralie glares at him. “I don’t need your press answer.”

“Then, pray tell, why are you here?” 

“You have the keys,” she tells him, and he’s not sure whether she’s being literal or metaphorical. 

“What?”

“The keys,” she repeats, “to Kenric’s castle. I need—” She stops, overcome with a heaving sigh. “I need to see it. One final time.” 

Bronte raises an eyebrow. “He didn’t leave any spare keys with you?” 

She snorts. “How do you think that would’ve looked, Kenric leaving me the keys to his private rooms? Especially with our feelings being so blatantly obvious.”

…She does have a point, Bronte has to concede that. They hardly need any more fuel for the wildfire of rumours that spread about them. 

He doubts that people will be kind enough to stop the rumours even now, when it is only Oralie left. They will scrutinise her appearance at the funeral, at the next crowning, at every occasion for years after today. 

Bronte’s sure of it. He’s seen this happen before. 

“Let me get them,” he says, and turns to retrieve the spare keys from his drawer. He and Kenric had exchanged spares, in case of emergency—although Bronte had never imagined that this would be the emergency. 

(To be honest, he’d always thought that he would die first, out of all of them. Murder, probably. Old family problems coming back to bite him.) 

He’s grateful, though, that Oralie isn’t pressing for an answer as to why he’s holed up in his castle, looking just as messy as she is. 

How can he face her and tell her the truth? That his brother, his blood, had committed such a dire act of treason that the entire elven world is teetering on the edge of chaos not seen since Atlantis?

When he finds the smooth crystal, he hands it to Oralie, who smiles gratefully. But her smile doesn’t reach her eyes, and Bronte understands. 

Nothing can be happy, in the wake of everything. 

She reaches over to grab the keys from Bronte’s hand. As she does so, her fingers brush Bronte’s exposed wrist, and she immediately jumps back as if she’s been burned.  

“Oralie?” Bronte asks, stepping forward. He freezes as she scrambles back, staring at her fingers as if she’s grown a third thumb. 

Oralie is mumbling curses under her breath, he realises, and he wonders whether he should call a healer. Maybe the grief has finally gotten to her. 

(It’s only a matter of time before it gets to him, too.) 

Oralie finally looks up at him, after a moment, a deep fear in her eyes. “Guilt,” she murmurs, and his heart stops. 

Guilt. 

Oralie’s an Empath. She’d touched his arm. 

How could I be so stupid?

Oralie steps forward, back into his foyer with a firm expression. “Are you guilty, Bronte?” she asks, and her voice begins to waver. 

“I—I’m not—”

She continues forward, and Bronte has no choice but to back away lest he be trampled. Oralie’s determination has given away to anguish, and what seems to be anger directed towards him. “I’ve felt a broken man’s emotions before,” she says, “all those who have succumbed to the weight of their guilt. And what I just felt, Bronte…you’re far beyond them.” Quietly, she adds, “I don’t know how you’re still sane.”

“I don’t know, either,” he admits, but truthfully he has his suspicions. He can feel Miss Foster’s lingering positivity, in the corners of his mind, keeping his memories together like glue. Someday soon, it will fade, and his guilt over who he is will finally take him. 

He won’t tell that to Oralie, though. 

“I can’t lose both of the people closest to me,” she says, and her grief shines through her eyes once again. “One to a sick, twisted pyromaniac and the other to the weight of his own, misplaced guilt.” 

Sick, twisted pyromaniac. Is that the man he knew? The man he grieves, the man whom he had loved through all of his childhood?

Maybe evil is all that runs through the blood in their veins. Maybe he and Fintan were always destined to be sad, sad men. 

Oralie notices that her words have the opposite effect of what she’d intended, and she freezes. “What?” she says. “What did I say?”

“Nothing,” he tries to tell her, but she’s too quick. 

“Fintan,” she murmurs, eyes wide. “What, do you think it’s your fault?”

No. He knows it. 

He and Fintan had their arguments, as young men. None so bad as the one that drove Fintan out of their childhood home for good. 

And then the Everblaze had rained down, and Bronte knew that his brother was unsalvageable. 

“That’s…not quite it,” he replies. “But I guarantee you it’s nothing important. My mind will not break, Oralie. I have kept myself together for so many years yet.” 

“No,” she replies, steely. “No! You’re obviously locking yourself up in this castle for a reason, and you’re obviously beating yourself up over something and it’s killing you!” 

“I miss him,” Bronte blurts out, and immediately wishes he hadn’t. 

Oralie pauses, obviously waiting for him to clarify. 

“I miss Fintan,” he says, and it’s like a weight lifts off his shoulders. 

The words seem to confuse Oralie. “You…what?” There’s something akin to anger in her voice, and Bronte’s guilt returns at full force. 

“I wish I didn’t,” he tells her, pleading for forgiveness. “I thought I had resigned myself to his death, before. But he was the last of my family, and apparently I have yet to resolve myself from that attachment.”

Oralie’s eyes widen. “Family?” she repeats. 

He almost can’t say the words. “My brother.”

Bronte turns away, just as Oralie says, “And you’re afraid that you’re just like him.”

“What?”

She breathes in sharply. “Kenric told me what happened in Sophie’s session. You think you’re irredeemable.”

That’s exactly right. “No.”

She curses under her breath and steps into his line of sight once again. “Your guilt is going to crush you,” she tells him frankly. 

“I’m not guilty!” he proclaims, and sure, it isn’t true, but now certainly isn’t the time to work through millenia of unresolved family trauma. 

Oralie grabs his arm, and he expects her to jump away as she had done before. Instead, though, she only drags him to his couch, silent. As they pass the kitchen, she raises an eyebrow at the blanket on the tiled floor, but still says nothing. 

Finally, once Bronte is sufficiently confused, Oralie asks, “Did you actually sleep last night?”

“Did you?” he retorts. 

“No,” she replies, honestly. “I doubt any of us did. Watching him go up in flames….” She shudders. “Part of me wants to make the whole thing a Forgotten Secret.”

Bronte can’t disagree.

He wasn’t in the room, he didn’t have direct view of the healing like Oralie did. But the scent of Everblaze—the familiar scent—had reached him before any of the rest of the Councillors standing outside.

Bronte had known that Fintan was unstable, before. But there was a part of him—a part of him that still lingers—that genuinely believed his brother to be good. Perhaps it’s leftover from their mother’s endless, unfounded optimism, her firm belief that her sons were good men who would grow up to change the elven world.

And change the world, they certainly did. Just not for the better. 

So forgetting the fire, forgetting his brother’s entire existence….the idea sounds enticing. But Bronte has a duty to his people, to himself, that he cannot forget. 

And the only Telepath he would have trusted to wash his mind is dead, now, anyway. 

“You know,” Oralie says, after a long moment, “we’re quite similar people, the two of us.”

Bronte raises an eyebrow. “Don’t put yourself down like that.”

“Oh, please. I’m no saint, either,” she replies. “But what you’ve done and what I’ve done are no matter, now.” She looks away, pensive. “What I meant, before, is that we’re in similar situations here. Your brother. My…Kenric. No-one else here understands, not like we do.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Bronte concedes. “But Fintan—”

���—was only broken because of us,” Oralie interrupts. “It’s the actions of the Council, both past and present, that led to what happened yesterday. We’ve spent these years believing him to be a great man, until the blaze…but maybe that was just our own willful ignorance.”

“Careful,” Bronte says, an almost teasing lilt to his voice. “You almost sound like the rebels.”

Oralie freezes, for a moment, an action so small he almost misses it. “Very funny,” she says, but her joking tone falls flat. 

Bronte frowns. That’s mildly concerning, but he’s not going to waste time worrying about Oralie’s rebel sympathies. He certainly hasn’t spent his time as a Councillor only following the law. 

(Neither did Fintan. Or Fallon. Or anyone, honestly, other than poor Terik who very clearly does not want to be here.)

(Come to think of it, that does speak to the corruption in their system. But that hardly matters right now.)

“Look,” Oralie continues, clearly eager to shift focus from her previous slip-up, “what matters is that you’re obviously brimming with guilt and I…I don’t know what I’m feeling. I won’t judge you for your family connections anymore than I expect you to judge me for my romantic ones.”

“Thank you,” Bronte says, and it’s the most honest he’s been all morning.

Her hand brushes his wrist once again, and she sighs with obvious relief. “Don’t shatter on me,” she tells him. “Please. Promise me.”

The last thing he wants is to go out like his brother. 

“I won’t,” he says. “I promise.”

[axels-corner]

Meetings with Fintan

Notes: @gay-otlc I was your secret Santa! Thank you @song-tam for organizing this event!

characters: Marella, Fintan, Linh, Bronte

words: 1708

Fintan woke up slowly when he heard footsteps coming down the hallway of his icy prison. He listened for a moment before recognizing the footsteps of Bronte.

“So are you here to ask me more pointless questions about the Neverseen that I don't know?” Fintan asks without looking at Bronte, he clears his throat

“No, I'm here because the council has officially decided to grant your request to mentor Marella Redek. But the council will be monitoring your meetings and sending nobility members to question miss Redek after each session so don't get any ideas for recruiting her to the Neverseen, or teaching her to spark everblaze.” Fintan's eyebrows raise, he didn't expect them to come to a decision this quickly and if they did he thought it'd be denied. He puts his hand on his chest in mock offense

“Me? Recruit people or teach them everblaze, how preposterous. I've never done that in my life.”

“I don't believe that for a second considering what happened with Jolie Ruewen.” Fintan goes back to tracing patterns in the ice

“I assume that you voted against this?”

“I did, considering that when we had Sophie heal your mind you killed one of my colleagues, and friends-”

“Bronte has friends how shocking,” Bronte's voice cut off his sarcasm

“But the girl needs to learn proper control and restraint,” He heaves a sigh not looking at Fintan “and as much as I hate it you're the only pyrokinetic alive and willing, but that doesn't mean I won't be keeping a very close eye on you to make sure you're not doing anything like manipulating her.” and without waiting for his response he turns around and walks out of Fintan's prison. That didn't stop him from yelling back

“Oh, I would never my dear Bronte.”

He had his first ability session with the girl in about thirty minutes. Contrary to what Bronte probably thought considering his last words to him, he didn't have any plans to try to get the girl to spark everblaze or join the rebel group that failed him.

But the council wouldn't have to worry about the last one because thirty five minutes later the girl appeared outside his prison with a black swan necklace around her neck.

“So I see that you've sworn loyalty to the swan group miss,” he already knew the girls name but he would rather give her a chance to introduce herself.

“Marella Redek, and yeah, it's to assure Forkle that I won't be consumed by my craving for fire, plus it's probably smart to have them on my side if the council decides to come after me.” Fintan laughs a little

“Finten Pyren, though you already knew that. I would shake your hand but the ice wall prevents that.” He looks away from the ice wall meeting the girls eyes for the first time, the same blue as her mothers, “it appears that you and I have more in common then I thought, miss Redek.” and though he was a pyrokinetic he could feel how much colder the room got after that sentence, and how the goblin guards clutched the hilt of their swords, this was going to be interesting.

It was the day of Marella's weekly meetings, but instead of the usual hushed whispers between the guards he heard two voices, after a moment of listening he realized one belonged to his prodigy and the other to another girl. He didn't have to wait long for an answer. As they come into the view of his ice prison and the other girl had silver streaks in her hair, the girl of many floods. He coughs as he sits up

“Well if it isn't the girl of many floods, maybe Marella can melt the walls and you can flood this place.”

“My name is Linh Song.” She corrects him

“Yeah, and we would never help you escape.” Marella says

“And there's the council way of thinking, they and the blackswan have convinced you that I'm a bad guy.”

“Because you are,” Marella cuts him off before he can give them another speech, he waves his hands like he's fanning away the words.

“Never mind that, then why is she here?” He points at Linh with the last words.

“To make sure that no fire's get out of control, because you seem to have a history of that.” he scowls

“Fire and water can not work together they are opposites, like shades and flashers.”

“If that's true then why do elves need shades and flashers to work together to make illusions?” Linh asks

“Plus we're already working on combining our abilities.” Marella says crossing her arms with a smirk, Fintan rolls his eyes.

“Fine she can stay,”

“That's not your decision.” one of them interrupts.

“But,” He says ignoring them, pointing at Linh “do not interfere unless I tell you to.”

“she'll interfere if the flames get out of control.” Marella corrects, Fintan grit his teeth

“Fine, today we will be discussing balefire vs normal flames.” and the lesson began

“What would it take for me to convince you to open your cache?” Fintan sat up and stretched

“Hello miss Redek, how are you on this freezing day on the mountain.”

“Answer the question.”

“Freedom.” He told her tracing symbols shaped like fire into the frost on the floor

“That's not possible, and you know it.” She said crossing her arms, he rolled his eyes, she acted like he wanted to burn down the lost cities and dethrone the councilors for revenge of what they did to him. She was right but how dare she assume.

“Well it seems like my knowledge of how to open the cache is lost to my mind like my freedom is lost to this prison and your council.” He looked up at her hoping his eyes conveyed his hatred towards the council for keeping him here, for denying him his flames, his power. Branding him as a talentless.

“Even if I could get your freedom even though we both know the council will never agree especially after what happened to Kenric. I would never let you out because you would just burn everything to the ground.”

“And what ever gave you that idea?” he asks going back to the frost

“Uh, maybe because you caused the death of a councilor and burned a city.” he shrugged

“Sometimes things need to burn to come back better and stronger, like phoenixes, isn't the city much more beautiful now? Plus he was going to die eventually, after all the security there was murder.” He grins into the floor remembering saying the exact same thing at the peace summit to Oralie.

“How can you make jokes about the man you murdered?” Marella yells at him

“Because he ruined my life so I ruined his!” Marella shakes her head

“I would say I couldn't believe you but, this seems in character for you.” and without she walks out of the room

“Running back to your moonlark?” Fintan asks, the only response he got was her flipping him off.

“Would noxflares be enough to convince you to open your cache?” Marella asked in the middle of their ability session.

“Well that came out of left field.”

“That's not an answer.”

“No, it's not.” Fintan takes a breath “Do you have noxflares, better yet do you have my cache or the fake that the Sencen boy foolishly stole?”

“Yes to both your questions.” Marella says.

“Then I would except your deal.” Fintan tells her. After the noxflare was moved in Fintan held out his hand for the cache “I get to choose what memory I show you.”

“That wasn't part of the deal.” Fintan shrugged

“You also didn't say you got to choose which memory I showed you.”

“How do I know that you're not going to burn the cache the minute I give it to you?” She asks

“I guess you should've thought of that, you'll just have to trust me, clocks ticking.”

“What?” Marella asks

“Oh, I didn't tell you? This is a timed offer, fifty seconds left.” Fintan mimcks a ticking clock for about ten seconds when Marella gives him the cache

“Fine, but this better not be a waist of my time.”

“That depends on how much you pay attention.” Fintan tells her before whispering under his breath as he selects the memory “Here we go.”

“Hello Fintan.” Bronte's voice cuts through his sleep,

“What is it with you people and coming to talk when I'm finally asleep?” Fintan grumbles

“You opened your cache.” Fintan yawned

“Why is it your business?”

“Because I am a councilor and those where forbidden secrets, and you where supposed to open it for the council, not your prodigy.” Fintan sat up gathering his hair into a ponytail the motion muscle memory because he had done it so often.

“Why does it matter? She probably showed it to the moonlark and isn't she your regent? Or do you not trust her?” Bronte ran his fingers through his cropped hair, Fintan remembered when they where on the council together and Fintan would help him cut his hair despite the fact that Fintan would tell him that he looked good with curly hair.

“Fintan, are you even listening to me?” Bronte was snapping his fingers in front of Fintan's face, well as close to his face as he could get with the ice wall. “Did you even her what I just said? Sophie Foster, Keefe Sencen, Fitz Vacker, Maruca Chebota, and Marella Redek all went to Elysian with Vespera.” Fintan shrugs, and Bronte's mouth drops open “Do you not care?” Fintan sighs

“Bronte, those children have gotten me arrested multiple times, caused my mind to be broken once, and ensured that I will be stuck in this ice prison for the rest of my life. Plus there smart kids they'll get out of this alive, plus Vespera's with them which means they probably have an alliance I ensure you they will be fine. Relax, sit down do fancy paperwork, you're freaked out over nothing.” He heard Bronte's footsteps fade as he walks out, maybe Fintan will finally be able to get some sleep without people talking to him.

[occasionally-good-authoring]

skateboard stickers and a bright red guitar strap

@winterfireice i was your secret santa, i hope you enjoy this! @song-tam

summary: biana is just a barista at the coffee shop with the world’s most pride flags. sophie is the college kid who seems to only ever host his sessions at this shop. marella is the band member whose band seems to play only at this shop. but that can’t mean anything, right?

There is no reason why a sweaty college student with blond hair tied up into a failing ponytail should turn Biana fifty different shades of red. Sophie Foster doesn’t seem to think so, with her fingerless leather gloves and elbow pads. 

Honestly, who gave him the right to look so good? Was their goal to make Biana re-realize how gay ae is every time ae sees her? It sure as hell seems like. Sophie’s got his skateboard in his left hand, looking around before finding Tam in a chair and practically bouncing over to him. He throws her skateboard down next to Tam, where it lands upside down, showing off the five d20’s stickers and three pride flags plastered on it.

She tries for a side hug that Tam pushes off with a small smile. He throws her skateboard on the chair next to Tam, then does her adorable bouncing walk over to Biana at the cash register. 

Shit. Ae did not have enough time to prepare for an actual interaction with the girl who can pull of sweaty skater punk. Sophie smiles, his eyes crinkling with it. 

God, she smiles like the fucking sun, ae can’t stop aerself from thinking.

“Hey Biana! How’s it going?” It’s okay, Biana can do this. Ae can control aer hopeless woman loving for one moment and talk to Sophie.

“Pretty good, how about you?” 

“Same here.” Another smile. Biana can do this. Ae’s not that useless of a lesbian. 

“What can I get for you, and don’t chose something I don’t want to make or I’ll convince Fitz to join your DnD group,” Biana laughs. Sophie narrows her eyes in a playful glare.

“You wouldn’t.”

“I would.”

“Unbelievable.” A beat of silence then a soft laugh Biana could get drunk on. Ae might just be able to if the way ae’s just a bit weak in the knees. “Can I get two large iced mochas with three shots of espresso?”

“Are you getting one for Mister-Black-Coffee or are you getting two coffees for yourself again?” Sophie smiles sheepishly.

“Now, why would you ever think that, Biana?”

“Oh I would never be able to give you a reason for that, Soph.” Sophie smiles. Biana turns away to make the coffees, wishing it was easier to keep aer brain to focus on working the espresso machine. Last time ae wasn’t focused ae burned aer hand. 

Somehow, with a beautiful girl watching aer, Biana makes the coffees without burning aer hand again. Ae doesn’t know how ae did it, but ae did. Biana might just be magical. 

“You’re great, Biana, a saint if I could say so. Which I can, and will.” Sophie’s smile could make the most emotionally stony person melt, and Biana’s not even close to stone. 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say.” 

.

As if one persistent crush of a friend wasn’t enough, Marella Redek refuses to give Biana’s heart a goddamn break. If there’s one thing that hits Biana harder than a girl with a skateboard, it’s a girl with a guitar.

And Marella’s got a guitar in her hands, the bright red shoulder strap catching some of cer gold streaked hair beneath it. Biana wants to wall over and free the strands, and maybe just brush aer fingers against Marella’s neck just to see what’ll happen. 

Ae busies aerself cleaning the counter, letting that idea be scrubbed out by the smell of bleach mixed with water. 

Marella’s band sets up for the nighttime show, the coffee shop practically empty before the flood of people Biana knows will come to watch them play. 

“Wait, where the hell is Keefe?” Stina says suddenly, stopping her messing with her keyboard. Linh looks up with a deceivingly innocent smile and Biana knows the answer long before Linh says a word. 

“With my brother, catching a ride.”

Maruca snorts. “Oh yeah? Did Tam get a skateboard big enough for the two of them?” 

“Unless he went to the store in the last hour, no, he didn’t.” 

Marella laughs and catches Biana’s eye from across the room, cer eyes reading Can you believe those two? plainly. Biana rolls her eyes and mouths a Nope, the shape of the word tarnished by the smile on her lips. But Marella seems to know the word well enough to smile a smile Biana swears contains the whole sun. 

Biana looks away before ce can see aer blush. The bell on the door dings and a yell of

“Took you long enough, Heslege!”

from Stina lets Biana know Keefe’s finally here, Tam most likely following in suit, ready for the shift he practically begged Jensi to let him trade. Jensi had smirked with all the smugness of a mob boss and said

“We can definitely trade shifts, Tam.”

Tam rushes to Biana near the counter, pointedly ignoring Keefe lean dramatically against Stina for a small jab from Marella. His cheeks are red, from the skateboard tucked under his arm or the blond warming up a few feet away, Biana can’t tell.

“Hey Loverboy, how was the ride over?” Biana asks quietly. Tam punches aer arm.

“Shut up.”

“Oh, that good?”

Tam glares at aer, to which Biana smiles sweetly. Tam eventually sighs and leans over to Biana.

“He caught me when I fell, Biana. In his arms. And he held me there for a second. I swear to god I almost fucking died.”

“God, Tam, it’s like you’re in a rom com. Next thing you know he’ll be dedicating his newest love song to you.” 

Tam rolls his eyes. “That’ll happen when pigs fly.”

“I can make that happen,” a new voice buts in. One with a smirk on cer lips and laughter in cer eyes. “Little glue and a crane or wires, I can make a pig fly.”

Both Biana and Tam turn red at Marella’s light voice, though for very different reasons. Biana laughs along, hoping Marella doesn’t notice the tint in aer cheeks. 

“Bit hot here, Biana?” Tam asks. Ae throws the rag at Tam, soaking wet rag smacking the middle of his shirt. 

“Dude!”

“I was just laughing at our friendly neighborhood hopeless romantic,” Biana laughs nervously. 

“Someone’s got to,” Marella laughs.

“I’m going to spit in your next coffee, Redek,” Tam warns, a laugh in his eyes with his cheeks red. 

“Be my guest, Tam, I’ll have Keefe try it first.” Marella laughs, then smacks the counter, leaning back off it. “I’d better get back there, band’s gotta practice and they’d fall apart without me, naturally.”

Ce winks at Biana before turning around, turning cer sun-smile back to the band, but with the way it changes, Biana can think just for a second, that ce had one just for aer. 

But no, that would be ridiculous. Marella smiles like that for everyone, minuscule changes or not.  

.

“Sophie, Sophie, please tell me that ae’ll realize soon. I winked at aer. I winked. Do you even know how stupid I felt? Tam saw! Tam was looking at me while I flirted with aer,” Marella rants into cer phone. 

Cer guitar is in it’s case, amp stuffed in a duffle bag hanging off Marella’s side. Ce tosses cer keys up and down, only a few blocks from cer apartment.

“I don’t know, ae’s worse than I was.”

“Now, I wouldn’t go that far, Soph. I had to ask to kiss you for you to go ‘Hey! Maybe Marella likes me!’.”

Marella fumbles with opening the door to cer apartment complex. 

“I’m not that bad!” A moment of paused, only Marella’s small laugh filling the space. “Okay, maybe I am.”

“Maybe?”

“Yeah, I’m that bad.”

.

Biana, like an idiot, had decided to come to the coffee shop on aer day off. While Marella’s playing and Sophie’s in the crowd, skateboard leaning on his chair and bandaids covering her arms and hands. 

“Sit next to Sophie,” Jensi says, a fond shake of his head. “She doesn’t bite, at least to my knowledge. Though, one can never be sure with blondes.”

“What do you have against blondes?” Biana laughs, aer face twisting into confusion. A look so serious it has to be a joke falls onto Jensi’s face.

“Nobody has hair that light naturally, I call witchcraft.” Jensi slides Biana’s coffee across the counter and shakes his head. “Now, go sit with him or I’ll pick you up and put you in his lap.”

“You can’t even pick me up!”

“Yeah, but Dex can and xe owes me for taking his shift so he could be annoying somewhere else.”

“Thanks for that, by the way. Xe came over and spent the night, xe and Fitz were the worst. It’s like they want to remind me how horribly single I am.”

“Go sit with Sophie and you won’t be.”

“Fuck you, Jensi.”

Ae goes to sit by Sophie anyway, gaining a soft punch from Sophie when she sits down. A smile too, bright and warm just like always. There’s not much speaking, not that Biana minds. 

It’s nice just sitting next to Sophie, watching Marella dance around the best ce can with a guitar. But then Marella takes the microphone from Keefe after a song, letting him wander off stage (probably towards Tam, Biana’s willing to bet). 

“Keefe bet me ten bucks I he would confess to his crush first, and I want a coffee tonight and only have ten bucks, so here we go.” Sophie’s smiling like a madman, elbowing Biana like he wants to make sure ae’s listening. “So, Biana, after way too much flirting, I would like to formally announce I like you and me and Sophie would like to take you on a date.”

“What.” The perfect thing for Biana to say in that moment.

“You suck! I didn’t bring money!” Keefe yells, in the middle of dramatically dipping down to his knee in front of time.

“Yeah, yeah, keep going Lover Boy. Now, what do you say Biana?”

There’s a lot of heartfelt things Biana could be saying in this moment, and probably a lot of things ae should say. Instead, ae yells:

“I want to choose the place!”

Sophie and Marella laugh, Sophie throwing an arm over Biana’s shoulder. 

“You’ve got yourself a deal, Bee,” they both say with a laugh. Keefe stays off stage for the next song, Marella taking over vocals with a voice that’s as rough as sandpaper in a lovely way.

“Ce wrote this one for you,” Sophie whispers.

Biana finds ae believes it.

[song-tam]

it’s officially secret santa week!! it’ll start today and run till the 30th!! please make sure to tag your posts with “kotlc secret santa 2022” and to tag both me and your giftee in your post. i can’t wait to see everything you guys create!!

(also as a note: im actually on vacation rn so i won’t be able to read everything till i get back, but i will be reblogging all fics and art, and reading through everything later)

[steal-nightmares-leave-dreams]

mermaid!sophie my beloved <3

this is for @amandayetagain! she asked for something from one of her fics so i drew mermaid!sophie from Weighed Down by a Corset and Silks (click for better quality)

@song-tam

[helensparklez]

@gaslight-gaetkeep-gayboss I was your secret santa, and I drew keefe and fitz for you! :)

@song-tam

[faggot-friday]

@an-ungraceful-swan I was your secret santa!! And I’m so so sorry for being late, I was planning on writing something but I had exactly zero inspiration, but then I remembered this song (which is a bit of a mid song tbh but I thought of it) and went: sophiana angst (it’s called arms, it’s the first result of you Google “arms lyrics”)

So once again, very very sorry for being late, I hope I can somehow make it up to you just name your price, and enjoy sophiana angst!

@song-tam

[directlyat-thesun-moved]

The Saga of Dex’s Abilities

This is for the KOTLC 2022 Secret Santa set up by @song-tam, and written for @you-have-been-frizzled. Sorry it’s late, hope you enjoy!

——————

Juline walked down the stairs of Rimeshire with a huge grin on her face. “Babe,” she called down to Kesler, “I have amazing news.”

Kesler walked to the bottom of the staircase to greet her. “What is it, love?”

Juline hesitated, and Kesler could swear he could hear her heart pounding as she told him, “I’m pregnant.”

“That’s amazing!” Kesler cried, smiling as wide as his wife now. When he realized she didn’t share his enthusiasm, though, he paused and turned back towards her. “Why aren’t you as excited as me?”

She shrugged. “I’m worried, Kes. You’re talentless… what if this kid ends up talentless too?”

“They won’t,” he assured her. “Our child will be perfect and talented. I promise.”

Juline blinked back a tear. “You can’t promise that. And besides, we’re a bad match. If we have a talentless kid, people are going to blame it on us and continue to enforce the stupid matchmaking system.”

Kesler shook his head. “Jules-“

“And what about the kid?” She continued, not listening to her husband. “They’ll have such a hard time with us as parents. Even if they do manifest and get into Foxfire, their parents will still be a bad match. Their father will still work at Slurps and Burps and not in the government - no offense. They’ll probably have no friends, and be alienated, and-“

“Juline.” Kesler interrupted. “Stop.”

She stopped to turn and look at him, a few stray tears running down her face.

“No matter what, this child is going to have two parents who love them. This child will have two parents who support them. This child will have a wonderful mother who will help her child every step of the way, and that’s more than some people have. Do you understand?”

Juline nodded and hugged her husband tight. “I love you,” she muttered, her now-constant tears falling onto his tunic.

“I love you too,” Kesler replied, “and I love this kid. We are going to give them the best life possible.”

~~~~~

When Dex was born, Kesler and Juline took him to see Councillor Terik. "Is he too young?" Juline asked. "Can you see if he'll manifest?" Terik shrugged. "He's so young that I don't know what will happen, but I can try." The Councillor held the infant's hand and was silent for a while. Kesler and Juline sat there, gripping each other's hands in anticipation. Finally, Terik looked up at them. "It may be too early to tell, but he should manifest." The proud parents hugged each other. "Do you see what this means?" Kesler practically squealed. "Not just for us, but for society? If baby Dex manifests, that'll show the world that bad matches can still have successful kids!" Juline nodded, eyes wide. "We did it, babe. We made a little tiny elf of our own that'll probably manifest!" "Just remember," Terik warned, "There's no guarantee of anything."

~~~~~

"Still nothing?" Juline asked.

Dex shook his head, dropping his schoolbag on the floor. "We checked for frosting in ability detecting today. Guess I'm not like you." He walked upstairs to his bedroom, barely holding back tears.

"Jules," Kesler said gently, "Don't you think you're putting too much pressure on him to manifest? Look at him. He's up there crying in his room right now. I know you're worried, but you need to remind him that manifesting isn't the most important thing in the world."

She sighed. "You're right. It's just so stressful, with all of his friends manifesting while he's still stuck in ability detecting. The triplets relentlessly tease him about it now, and I think they don't realize how much it affects him. Can you get started on dinner while I talk to him?"

Kesler nodded. "Of course, babe."

Juline made her way upstairs to Dex's room and knocked on the door. "Dex? May I come in?"

A few seconds later, he appeared at the door, face stained by tears. "I'm sorry, Mom."

"Dex, baby, you have nothing to be sorry for," she assured him. "I'm the one who should be apologizing. I never meant to make you feel like you had to be like me or that you had to manifest. I don't say it enough, but abilities or no abilities, I love you just the way you are. You're perfect, okay?"

Dex nodded. "Love you."

"Love you too," Juline replied, smiling.

~~~~~

When Dex opened the door of Rimeshire, he was smiling wider than either Juline or Kesler had ever seen before.

"Dex?" Kesler asked. "What happened?"

"I manifested!" he exclaimed.

Juline's mouth dropped open. "What's your ability?"

"I'm a technopath!"

Both Juline and Kesler walked up and hugged their son. "I'm so proud of you," Juline said. "I'm so, so proud of you."

[uni-seahorse-572]

hey @squishmallow36! I was your secret santa, hope you enjoy :)

taglist: @song-tam @gay-otlc @florida-preposterously @xanadaus @kamikothe1and0lny

[fandomsareforlife]

Secret Santa Fic: I Think We Are Going To Be Friends

@istanrandomfandoms I was your secret Santa! Thank you to @songtam for hosting this!

So, uh fun fact: I currently am on vacation and as such can not properly ensure that my formatting is correct. So I apologize if this looks terrible.

Quick summary/trigger warnings: Dex hosts Jensi, Fitz, Keefe, and Tam over for a sleepover. Dex is an anxious person and worries over whether or not they actually want to be there. TW are probably for a non-graphic description of a possible panic attack that is warded off, some intrusive thoughts and a few swears here and there.

Uh, a few notes that are totally optional: I actually have never been to a sleepover so I apologize for any inaccuracies. Also, this is not the most accurate description of anything, so take this all with a grain of salt. And I still can’t end things or make good titles.

So enjoy all 2k words of this!

Dex didn’t know how he got stuck being the one who held most of the hangouts for the guys. After all, he wasn’t the best student or the most popular or the most social. He couldn’t even promise a quiet place to study.

Of course, there were a few possibilities as to why. Dex’s house was the one closest to their school. Dex had the best snacks. Dex has the best study method.

The most likely was simple because Dex’s parents were the best of the group. Tam, Fitz, and Keefe all had distant and harsh parents and too big, empty and quiet houses. And Jensi’s parents had been cold to them ever since they caught going to the musical meetings.

Dex’s house, on the contrary, was full of love and noise. It was big, but it felt full to the brim. There was a warmth that was missing from the others.

No matter what the reasoning was, Dex’s house was the unofficial-official hangout place.

Friday was one of the many times that this was brought into play. The guys were coming over that night, and they were having a sleepover. They were definitely going to do homework, but they were also going to do activities like watch movies and talk.

This wasn’t the first one Dex had hosted a sleepover, but it was the first time he had so many people at one. He loathed to admit it, but he was nervous. Dex knew that was normal, but he felt like it was admitting weakness.

But it was all going to go well. If Dex believed that, then it had a higher chance of going well. That was the idea, right?

—------

This was a terrible idea. The sleepover was going to go all wrong. Everyone was going to hate him for it. Nothing Dex could do was right.

These were some of the thoughts that were racing through Dex’s head the day of the sleepover. It was a train of thought that Dex tried to avoid, but he couldn’t always avoid it.

It wasn’t even anything that serious. He just had heard some kids talking about how boring sleepovers were during physics.

“I hate going to sleepovers. Seriously, it’s basically just watching a movie and sleeping. We could just do it during the day,” was what some kid in physics said. There were a good amount of other kids who agreed.

That comment allowed all the anxieties Dex had buried down in his head to rear their ugly heads.

He didn’t want some of the only people who tolerated him to start resenting him. Sure, they were only friends since Sophie was his cousin, and they didn’t feel the need to be close friends with him.

Unfortunately, it meant that they were only hanging out with Dex outside of when they had to make Sophie happy.

Therefore, if Dex screwed the sleepover up, then the other guys would probably not want to hang out with Dex for any other reason that they could avoid.

So Dex had to make sure not to screw up the first big sleepover he ever had.

Everything was counting on him!

He wasn’t sure he could do it.

********

The time for the sleepover had finally arrived, and Dex didn’t feel prepared at all for it.

Sure, he had prepared his bedroom (that really was the size of a small apartment) with as many snacks and blankets as he could get away with. And he had as many movies as he could find all by the tv he had, and he even managed to convince the triplets that they weren’t to disturb them.

Therefore, Dex had no real reason to be nervous. But he was. And it didn’t make sense.

Dex couldn’t afford to make any huge mistakes, and he would barely get away with all the small ones he would make. But he had to try and not destroy the friendships he had.

Ding Dong.

The first person was here. Dex raced downstairs towards the door, hoping that he would get there first.

Unfortunately, Dex’s mom got to the door first. Dex was almost at the foyer when he saw Tam and Keefe’s faces.

“Hi, Dex!” greeted Keefe. “Long time no see. How you doing?”

“I’m good,” Dex replied. He motioned his mom to go away, but she didn’t seem to get the message. “How are you guys?”

Tam shrugged. “Fine. We walked here together. Fitz and Jensi are coming soon.”

Dex nodded perhaps a bit too vigorously. He exclaimed just a tad too loud, “Sweet!” Dex then felt himself blushing. He did not have to be that loud.

Thankfully, Tam and Keefe didn’t seem to bothered by it.

“Why don’t you guys go up to Dex’s room?” Dex’s mom requested.

“Sure!” replied Keefe. “Come on, you guys! I want to see how Dex’s room was set up!”

Tam nodded. “Okay. Mrs. Dizzne, can you send Jensi and Fitz upstairs when they ge-“

There were three knocks heard from the door, and Dex made his way to open it this time. Standing in the door way was Fitz and Jensi.

“Hello,” Fitz greeted. “I see we’re the last ones here.”

“Yeah, we are,” Jensi agreed.

“Hi, guys. We were just about to go to my room, if that’s okay with everyone,” Dex explained. He really wanted to get away from his mother’s gaze and back to the safety of his room.

Dex trodden up the stairs, and the others followed.

“I have to warn you guys that it’s a bit messy,” Dex stated just before he opened the door to his room.

“That’s okay. My room is also a mess,” Jensi chuckled.

Opening the door, Dex gave his room just one more glance. He regretted not taking down all his posters, but at least all of his clothes were put away.

“Can I sit on the bed?” Fitz asked. He pulled his bag closer to his chest. Dex remembered that Fitz never really asked for things.

“Sure,” Dex chirped. “I call floor.” While the floor had multiple blankets, it wasn’t the most comfortable place to sleep. Dex had actually planned to take it so the others didn’t have to.

“Cool, I call the couch,” Keefe announced. He took Tam’s hand, and dragged him to the coach with him. Dex had to admit that Tam’s angry expression was pretty hilarious.

Tam glared at Keefe. “What are you doing? I can just sleep on the floor.”

“What? Lord Hunky Hair not good enough for you?”

Tam kicked Keefe as he moved towards the floor. “You kick in your sleep.”

Tam put his sleeping bag on the floor next to Dex. “Dex, I am joining you on the floor.”

“Sure,” Dex squeaked. Dex hoped he didn’t kick Tam in his sleep.

“I guess I got the hammock?” Jensi asked rhetorically. They simply sighed as he put his bag on the hammock before sitting.

There was silence as the teens got themselves settled. Dex could not figure out if it was comfortable or not.

Eventually, Fitz broke it.

“So what do you guys want to do?” Fitz inquired. Dex felt cold shame fill him. He had things they could do planned, but he quickly realized that they were super embarrassingly juvenile.

“Well, could we play truth or dare?” Tam suggested, tongue between teeth. “I think that could be fun.”

“Sure!” Dex cried. He then realized that he might have sounded a bit too enthusiastic. He hoped that no one would judge him for that.

The teens sat on the floor in a circle. Fortunately, Dex had the foresight to make sure his carpet was clean.

“I call going first!” Jensi yelled. “Keefe, truth or dare?”

“Uh, dare obviously,” Keefe replied.

Jensi’s face scrunched up in mock concentration. “How about you do a cartwheel?”

Keefe recoiled. “Why?” he whined. “You know that I can’t do that.”

Jensi chuckled. “Should have thought of that earlier!”

Keefe grumbled, but he got up reluctantly. He walked a good distance away, and put his hands in the air. Lowering them, he stumbled and fell on his face. Dex laughed along with the others. It was pretty comical, after all.

“See guys?” Keefe asked rhetorically. “I don’t know how to do one.”

Keefe eventually moved back to the circle. “Tam, truth or dare?”

“Truth,” Tam stated.

Keefe rubbed his hands together. “Alright then. If you had to take someone in this room on a date, who would you take?”

Tam responded, “Not you. Maybe Fitz?” Tam tapped his chin. “He doesn’t talk during movies, unlike the rest of you. He isn’t as annoying either.”

“Thank you for the compliment,” Fitz responded. “I will hold it close to me.” The other guys started laughing, but it took Dex a few minutes to realize that Fitz was being sarcastic.

“Alright, who's the next victim?” Jensi asked after they finally calmed down.

“Dex,” Tam announced. Dex felt his palms become instantly ten times more sweaty, if that was even possible.

“Uh…Truth?” Dex mumbled.

“Alright,” Tam replied. “Why are your hands shaking? They have been since we got here.”

Well, there went Dex’s plan of keeping his anxiety hidden. He should have really expected that.

Dex figured that his best choice was to just be honest.

“Well, you know how it is. Anxiety and all that stuff. I’m used to it,” Dex joked. Surely if he made it sound like it wasn’t a big deal, then they wouldn’t treat it like a big deal. That was pretty sound logic.

Apparently it was not, if the others' faces were anything to go by.

“Dex.” Fritz’s voice sounded choked. “You shouldn’t be used to that. No one should be.”

The others nodded in agreement.

Jensi added, “If you want, we can just cancel the sleepover. It’s not worth it if it makes you anxious.”

Keefe moved towards Dex, and he grabbed Dex’s hands. Dex distantly remembered that Keefe had like some magical ability that allowed him to figure out what someone was feeling if he touched them.

Keefe asked, “What do you want to do, Dex?”

Dex couldn’t grasp a solid thought. Every thing in his head was moving too fast and too slow all at once. He could not fuck this up. He just couldn’t.

Everyone was going to leave him since he messed up and he is a human disaster who doesn’t deserve things and why didhethinkthiswasagoodidea????

“DEX!” a voice shouted. Dex realized that he was breathing very heavily and his eyes were closed. There were hands holding his hands.

Dex forced his eyes open. Sitting in front of him was still Keefe. Keefe who was safe.

“Are you back with us?” Keefe asked softly. Dex gave a small nod in response. He didn’t trust his voice.

“Alright. Mind explaining what just happened?” Keefe inquired. Keefe’s voice was soft and kind. It was a trick. Keefe was trying to let his guard down.

Dex was powerless against his desires to let his guard down. He rationalized it by thinking that at least he would be able to be free from the pretenders.

“Why do you keep hanging out with me when Sophie’s not here? Sophie is the best person ever, and I am just her messed cousin who is obsessed with tech. I can’t barely get through the first hour of a sleepover without breaking down. Why do you keep coming back for me?” Dex’s voice broke saying the last sentence, his voice barely above a whisper. Dex’s hands found their way into his hair and were pulling at his red locks.

Jensi spoke up. “Hey man. Why would we do that? We like you for you. Not because of Sophie. Not because of anyone else. We like you for you.”

Dex looked up towards the other two. Tam had a sad look on his face, and Fitz was nodding.

Tam added, “I became your friend since you were interesting. I don’t became friends with people just because we have a mutual friend. They have to earn it.”

Fitz gave Dex a perplexed look. “I don’t understand how you didn’t know that we wouldn’t be here if we were not friends. Why would you sleep over at someone’s house if they are not your friend?”

Dex started crying, but this time his tears were of happiness.

Maybe they were lying. But Dex wanted to believe that they were telling the truth.

“Thanks guys,” Dex choked out.

“You’re welcome,” Tam responded, and the others gave similar replies.

Dex gave a small grin and asked, “So, Jensi. Truth or dare?”

The teens laughed and continued their game. The sounds of laughter would continue on for the rest of their lives.