#kotlc fic

[bookwyrminspiration]

for news of the heart, ask the face (linked)

hello @soryasongsaa my beloved, I was your secret santa <3 (ty @song-tam). I have tried. very earnestly. to write a tamarelliana fic worthy of your prompt, so I hope you enjoy what I've come up with. because MAN did I not know what I was doing

summary: Tam, Biana, and Marella each have their own demons to face, but fortunately they have each other to lean on--or at least they would, if they stopped pushing each other away. And if they stopped listening to the dark and mysterious forces calling to them.

warnings: mild arguing and panic/breakdowns

word count: 18.4k

[radishearts]

My kotlc enjoyers pspspspsppspspsppspspss have some sketches for a fic im writing :D (Before I Burn)

It’s set in precannon, around 20 years before the current TL (So like, the 90s) following Kenric and Oralies navigation of Elvish Bureaucracy, classicism and inter-species politics. Also Brant is his brother and Kenric is desperately trying to dispute ability restriction — I’ll put the summary in the replies but if ur interested give it a read

[primalmagic]

stars in the noon sky

linh's coming over, marella's room is a mess, and she's just a little bit stressed about her mom.

──────────

Marella tightens the red bow in her hair for the one millionth time, humming softly to her favorite song. It'd been playing on repeat for an hour now, but she hadn't been paying attention- her mind was occupied with... something else.

Finally satisfied with how she looks, she closes a cabinet door. As she wipes a suspicious stain off of her mirror, a sharp knock echoes across the bathroom walls.

"Marella, darling, what have you been doing in the bathroom for so long?" Caprise's clipped and unfocused voice floats through the door.

Fuck.

"Nothing, Mom! Do you need anything?"

"I want to take a bath."

"You alright took two baths today," she frowns, nearing the door.

"I want to take a bath," Her mother repeats stubbornly.

She unlocks the door and lets her mother in. It was one of her mom's good days anyway, and the last thing she wants to do is make things worse. See, ever since she had manifested and started throwing fireballs everywhere, something had shifted between the two of them. Because yes, she'd stood up for Marella, but now she was more... skittish around her. Maybe she was reading into it too much, but it made her feel sick. It wasn't her fault she was a pyrokinetic.

"Just be out by the time Linh comes, okay? I'll see you then." She kisses her mother's cheek and leaves the bathroom, ignoring the confused look on Caprise's face- she either forgot Linh was coming over, or forgot who Linh was.

She spends the next two hours tidying up her room, which was saying something, because Marella Redek absolutely hates cleaning up her room. It isn't just a chore, it's absolute torture. Plus, it's not like anyone has ever bothered to remind her to clean it. Her dad barely interacts with her anymore, and her mom... well, her mom was her mom. So, after months of throwing things around, her room was beginning to look like a dumpster fire.

She isn't proud of it, and she's damned if she'd ever let Linh come over to this sort of mess. So now, for the first time in forever, she's cleaning up.

And look, she's nervous. Linh is, well, amazing. She's kind, and talented, and funny, and all the things Marella has ever wanted to be. Plus, she's gorgeous. And not just in looks- but in action. Watching her around water was one of the most fascinating things Marella has ever witnessed. She was elegant, and graceful, and-

"Marella?"

She looks up from the ground, hands on a textbook from years ago. "Oh, hi Linh," She manages weakly, "I was just... studying?" She gestures towards the book in a rather awkward manner.

And Linh, ever the sweetest, smiles at her and asks "Anything I can help with?"

"No, uh, I was just finishing up. Sorry." She thrusts the book into a nearby closet and stands up. Idly, she looks at Linh, only then realizing that damn, when had she grown this tall?

Marella has always been taller than her, it was a fact. One that she'd tease the older girl about relentlessly. Now they are practically eye-level, and she doesn't really know what to feel about that.

Linh blinks, "What?"

For the love of mallowmelt, she'd been staring, hadn't she?

"Nothing, I just realized that we're almost the same height," She frowns, "It's a pity. I won't be able to see your hair anymore."

Linh scoffs, "You'll see my face. Isn't that better?"

"Yeah," She looks her in the eyes, smiling slightly, "It kind of is."

That didn't seem like the response she'd been expecting, and Linh turns a light shade of pink and looks away. "Anyway... uh, your mom let me in and said there were cookies in the oven, want to go grab them?"

At the mention of her mom, her smile dims slightly. She walks past Linh and grabs her hand, dragging her down to the kitchen.

The cookies are not in the oven, in fact. They are sitting unbaked upon the kitchen counter.

Linh frowns, "Oh well, we can put them inside, and come back later?"

At that, Marella giggles. "I know it's really easy to forgot, but I'm a pyrokinetic, darling. I'm like, a living, breathing, oven. Except I get things done a hundred times faster." She waves her hands around dramatically as if it emphasizes the point.

"Oops," Linh laughs, "Sorry?"

Marella watches her hand, willing the smallest spark to answer her call. A tiny flame begins to lick her hand, swelling and waving as it hits the air. She puts the cookie tray on top of her hand and watches as the cookies slowly turn harder and form a clear shape.

"Damn." She hears Linh mutter.

"What?" Had she done something wrong?

"I don't think I could ever get used to you doing that."

Unease curls in the bottom of her stomach, fear pulsating and whispering in her head. She hates you. She hates your fire. You're an idiot. Fuck, you're such an idiot.

Linh's eyes widen, "Shoot, that came out wrong. I mean, like, it's really beautiful. The flames, and the way you control them. It's- it's really cool."

Marella stands there a while, partially in shock and partially basking in the warmth of her friend's words.

"Marella?"

"Marella?? You alright?"

She blinks, then sees Linh point at her hand. The cookies, now a harsh charcoal black, lay in ashes upon the slightly-bent tray. Flames dance upon the edges, high enough to reach her face.

"Sorry," She mumbles, "Sorry. Somehow my fire ends up messing everything up."

"I don't blame you," the older girl shrugs, and after a moment, adds: "Or your fire."

She wills out a large droplet of water and plops! it on top of the still-burning cookie tray. She looks up and grins, "There you go! Problem solved."

"Thanks," Marella laughs lightly, "I don't know what I'd do without you."

Linh nods, "I take my job of being the only one that can put you out very seriously."

"You mean, put my fire out." Marella snorts.

"No, I mean you. You and your fire aren't different people. It's your ability, and a part of who you are." Linh looks at her curiously, "Why do you always act like it's on its own?"

It's not accusatory, but it causes the blond to look away. "Sorry."

"You don't have to apologize," She steps closer to Marella, "Are you alright?"

The truth spills out of her before she can remember to keep her mouth shut. "My mom does it, a lot."

"Does what?"

"She's a flasher. Whenever you ask her to use her ability or just... do something, she'll always just frown and say her light 'doesn't want too'. It's... I think I know why she does it, honestly. It's so much easier to pretend that it's not my fault that my ability did something wrong. Especially when everyone's so goddamn set on calling me the villain because I'm not Talentless, but somehow, I'm ten fucking times worse!" She yells, not sure what the hell she's doing anymore. But she's started, and she's definitely not done.

"And my mom... they say she's getting better. They say she's learning and she's going to be okay but I know her, and I know she's not. And it sucks, because I love her, and I need her, but maybe I'm wrong and I don't know who she even is anymore. I'm constantly walking on broken glass around her now. It's like- it's like, before we would be able to do things together and now... now it's like we have nothing in common at all."

Linh interrupts, looking at Marella with an expression she can't quite pinpoint, "You have her freckles."

"Sorry?"

"You have your mom's freckles. They aren't super noticeable but they're still there. One right next to your nose and the others on your cheek. Your mom has them in the same places. Not that it matters or anything, but uh, you know, just an observation." She mumbles, turning away.

"Oh." Marella blinks, willing her blush to go away. "You've got a good eye for details."

She shrugs, "Not really? It's just, easy, when it comes to you, I guess?"

"How come?"

"They're like stars," She leans on the countertop and looks up at Marella, "Like the really small ones you can only see during the dead of night. The ones that have always been there, but you just don't notice 'cause you haven't been looking close enough."

Marella opens her mouth to speak, but closes it when she realizes Linh isn't done.

"They're like stars in the midnight sky. But you're not midnight, you're the freaking sun. Stars in the morning sky? What's the opposite of midnight?" She frowns and scrunches her eyebrows (it's not cute, Marella thinks).

"...Noon?" She supplies.

Linh snorts, "Sure, noon. Stars in the noon sky."

"My freckles... are the stars in the noon sky." She blinks again, because she doesn't really know how to reply like that.

"Yep!" She laughs.

The silence that follows isn't awkward, but it's not quite comfortable either. Marella grasps for something to say, and eventually speaks.

"Hey, Linh?"

"Yeah?"

"You're a really awesome friend."

She beams, "Thank you!"

"Want to go grab mallowmelt?"

Linh's smile never disappears, "How could I ever say no to that?"

[moonlarked]

death, she is cunning and clever as hell (and she’ll eat you alive)

in which: tam deals with the fallout of a choice.

Tam didn’t know how long he was supposed to sit here.

Wraith had walked him in, led him to the bench he was sitting on, and told him it would just be a few minutes. “We just need to figure everything out” and “we need to let everyone recover” and “we’ll be with you shortly.”

Tam didn’t know how long a few minutes was in the Collective’s eyes.

All he knew was that he hated this room.

He hated being alone, more accurately. He hated not having anyone to bounce off of. He’d always had someone. First it had been Linh, his sister, the only person he’d ever truly trusted for the vast majority of his life. Then he’d somehow fallen into Sophie Foster’s dysfunctional group of outcasts and mentally ill teenagers trying to save the world. He’d been in on all their meetings, adding a dry piece of commentary or a pragmatic piece of advice, and over time he found himself genuinely caring about these people. He found himself a family.

He didn’t know if he even had friends now.

He remembered Linh’s tight-lipped frown and shell-shocked eyes. Rayni’s slitted gaze, confused tears wetting her cheekbones. Keefe’s collapse to the ground.

Sure, she had been a villain. But she had also been a living, breathing person.

Nobody in their group had premediated, planned, schemed, with the intent to kill a living person.

Nobody until now.

Why had he done it? The answer that came to his head first: he was tired. He was tired of Linh’s retreat into a stiffer, calculating version of her old self. He was tired of Sophie running herself ragged every day, manipulated by people who said they were trying to help her. He was tired of Fitz and Biana constantly grieving over a brother that hadn’t even loved them in the first place. He was tired of innocents getting dragged into this twisted plot.

But another part of him, maybe a more honest part, told him he did it because he was angry and scared.

He was angry at the pain inflicted on him by Gisela.

He was scared of what might happen to his sister. And by proxy, what might happen to him, because he couldn’t live without his sister.

So, honestly?

It was because he was selfish.

He really hadn’t changed since Exillium.

A light knock at the door sounded and before Tam could answer, it cracked open and Sophie’s head poked into the room.

She looked awful. Her dark circles, which were always rough, looked like they had been pummeled and bruised for hours. Her olive skin was drenched in sweat. The dark roots of her dyed blond hair even seemed more pronounced.

She opened her mouth, then closed it, choosing to simply stand there like a gawking observer.

If it were any other time, Tam would make a dry comment about her lack of words. But he couldn’t do that now - he wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to do that again. Besides, Sophie would see right through him. His mask of aloofness was pretty much shattered.

Instead of saying anything, she walked over and sat on the bench next to him.

“Everyone’s fine,” she assured him. “Linh’s good. She seemed to recover quickly.”

Tam didn’t know if the desperation had shown on his face that much or if she simply knew him that well by now, but either way he was grateful. “Rayni?”

“Livvy’s treating her right now. I think she’s in shock or something.”

“…Keefe?”

Sophie’s silence was enough of an answer, and Tam slumped forward, burying his face in his hand and trying to stop the cowardly tears from appearing. He couldn’t cry. Not now.

A soft hand was laid on his shoulder, and he looked up to see Sophie with an impossibly sympathetic look in her brown eyes.

And Tam broke.

The tears weren’t soft. They were angry and jagged and loud.

Sophie wrapped her arm around him and allowed him to stain her tunic, gently rubbing her hand along his shoulder and neck.

He sniffed and looked up at her. “Why are you comforting me?”

She sighed. “Tam, how often have I cried? How often have I fallen apart? How often have I been held in this exact same way?”

“This is..”

“Exactly the same,” she interrupted. “And I’m going to help you through this. Because that’s what we do. We help each other.”

We.

There was still a we.

Sophie gripped his hand, keeping the other wrapped around his shoulders.

Tam knew this wasn’t the end of his trouble. Soon, he would be confronted by the Collective, and then maybe the Council, and then he would have to somehow talk to his friends. He wasn’t going back to any semblance of normal after this.

But for now, he let her stay.

[autistic-daydreamer]

If I said I was writing a kotlc fic where Fitz ran away to the Forbidden Cities at some point that is after Legacy (undisclosed time of when after, still deciding) and ended up in Norway and it's angst, would yall be interested?

[doodle-do-wop]

I CANT BELIEVE I MISSED HEKSTER INTERNATIONAL LESBIAN DAY

anyway have some gays and the totally legitimate copy of Legacy

@camelspit

fic under cut

Sophie's breath caught with an audible hitch as Stina's warm hand brushed softly beneath her bottom lip. The wind picked up, blowing Stina's beautiful curls around like a dark mass of lovely brown hair.

Stina leaned in, her eyes darting somewhere else before returning to Sophie's eyes as Sophie seemed to move without thought. Her hand starting to reach for Stina's waist and her back as the taller girl pushed a playful lock of Sophie's hair back behind her ear. The sensation made Sophie shiver and her heart begin to pound in a way she hadn't felt in what was practically ages. This was familiar and yet new all at once.

Sophie attention was on Stina Heks and Stina Heks alone as the girl finally spoke.

"So," she shrugged, her eyes glancing slightly downwards before studying Sophie's eyes with such intensity, such care it made Sophie realize how little anyone had ever done so before.

Sophie's eyes had always been unique. A genetic mutation even the Black Swan didn't fully understand made Sophie the only elf to have brown eyes. People started all the time whenever they spoke to her but not like this. Not like how Stina was looking at her.

The world has faded away in the gentle brown billowing curls of Stina's hair. Navy pools of twinkling eyes were all Sophie could drown in as she took in with great detail how the light illuminating Stina's face made her dark eyes shimmer like the moon reflected in a lake full of stars.

Stina Heks was a thief, and her eyes were proof of her folly.

"We good," Stina asked as she leaned in, their lips inches apart as the smell of her perfume send an electrified blast shocking through Sophie's system, frying her brain into fuzzy, cloudy warmth as Stina whispered her name.

"Foster."

She was the Moonlark, the girl who disappeared, the Black Swan's experiment, and so much more. She was Sophie Elizabeth Foster.

And yet her name sounded like honey and all things worthy of the lilt in Stina's voice as the word slipped past her soft lips.

Sophie closed her eyes as her hands started to rest themselves on Stina when suddenly the other girl stiffened. She stopped and pulled back which was the complete opposite of what Sophie wanted her to do in that moment.

Sophie opened her eyes and saw the worry in Stina's navy blue eyes. The hesitance.

Stina wasn't holding her as tightly as Sophie wished she was. Sophie wanted her to pull her in by the collar of her jerkin and kiss her despite the miraculously tiny voice wondering why. Stina wasn't cupping Sophie's chin too tightly, Sophie could've moved away if she wanted to but she didn't.

Sophie knew she'd have to meet Stina halfway.

So she did.

Sophie gripped the fabric of Stina's tunic, pulling her close as the taller girl gasped softly as Sophie stood on her tip toes to reach better.

"Can I kiss you?" Sophie asked and Stina answered her by gently pressing her lips against Sophie's. Filling in the gap that had been empty for ages.

Sophie's hands were pulling her closer, Stina's fingers were buried in her hair. They paused only slightly for breath and then Sophie stumbled forward but Stina was ready to catch her. Their foreheads bonked together and Sophie winced.

"You could've told me to stop." Stina lightly complained, rubbing her forehead as she smiled nervously at Sophie before asking quietly. "Do you want me to stop?"

"No," Sophie told her, surprised she found the words to be true. She glanced at Stina's lips and then at her.

Stina nodded and Sophie kissed her again, a rumbling hum growing inside of her as a gust blew around them. Power seemed to flow all around in the wild winds that carried their feet off the ground. Stina's arms wrapping securely around Sophie's waist. The biting winds chased each other until they melted into a melody, dancing and spinning around and around with the beat of their fluttering hearts in tune as one.

Stina pressed her forehead against Sophie's and a warmth seemed to sink into their skin, deep past the pain and the hurt, further than any tear or cut. The electricity raged but did not snap as it seemed to flow between them, the energy shared as their moment reached the crescendo.

Sophie breathed out softly as Stina rubbed their foreheads together. Their hands finding each other easily as they locked into place.

It wasn't perfect nor was it the masterpiece of a life time, an award winning movie scene or even a simple dear diary kiss. It was just this, just them, just this moment and many more to come.

Sophie never imagined she'd see Stina Heks blush so fully or smile at her so warmly.

But here she was.

And it was real.

[tam-shade-song]

Ok, so out of these three fic ideas which would y’all like to see the most?

a. Kotlc Frankenstein AU as close to the OG book as possible where Sophie is Forkle’s monster. No Neverseen, no ships, just a lot of Angst and found family. Poc Vackers, Vietnamese Songs and Nonbinary and morally gray Sophie.

b. Kotlc Band AU told from Tam’s perspective. Ship will either be Kam or Kitz ( Keefe x fits) or Sokeefe. Tell me which ship you think it should be in the tags, I want the public’s opinion. Story focues around Tam being FtM trans and coming to terms with his identity as a teen music star. Lots of Platonic Glam and platonic Sotam.

c. Marauders Starchaser fic told from both James and Reggie’s POV. James narrates the past and Regulus the present as they try to come to terms with their relationship and fight the Dark Lord. Rosekiller, with lots of Slytherin skittles bc I love them.

[dreaming-of-the-end]

futures and dreams (and other non-fading scars): Bianuca

A/N: Hi @uni-seahorse-572, I'm your secret santa! Thanks @song-tam for hosting!

Summary: Biana looks at her again, and her eyes are tinted red from exhaustion and pain but still they carry with them the Vacker power. The one she's craved and hated for far too many years.

TW: mentions of blood/violence/wounds

Tags: @steppingonshatteredglass @sunset-telepath @stardustanddaffodils @turquoise-skyyyy @skylilac @wu-marcy @saintashes @rune-and-rising @lavender-and-rainy-days @confusedamphibian @hellomyfriends @callas-starkflower-stew @a-harmless-poison @professionalwhalewatcher @theogony @gay-otlc @confuzzled-fox @almostfullnerd @athenswrites @synonymroll648 @squishmallow36 @xanadaus @honey-the-dinosaur-ate-our-kid

Biana's lips part as she sleeps, in soft contrast to the rest of her twisted face. Maruca wants to trace a finger down her skin, soothe the wrinkle between her brows, let her eyes rest easy instead of pressed tight.

At least she's finally asleep.

The bandages wrapped across most bare skin make the idea of rest impossible: three hours ago, she was pinned down to keep from writhing, with teeth clenched so hard they ground audibly as Elwin and Livvy plucked shards of glass from her skin, then poured a disinfectant elixir over the jagged wounds. The numbing elixir barely eased the pain for her. Elwin said some of the glass had gone too deep.

Maruca wants to hold her hand, but even if she could do that without causing her pain, she isn't sure what it would mean. Years before, there wouldn't have been any sort of hesitation, only relief, comfort, familiarity.

The thing is, she knows the feeling of her hand so well that seeing those fingers twitch in her sleep is a phantom pain, an absence so familiar that feeling it is easier than it would be to feel the real thing.

Biana's mouth purses and her face screws up on itself for a moment before fading back into worried sleep.

(god, that mouth.)

Livvy had taken her aside, an hour ago, when the bandages had just been wrapped and the color had still been gone from her skin. "Elwin will tell them that the scars might fade. He will give her a possibility, maybe a hope."

"And you?" Maruca asked.

Livvy looked at her. "Maybe in a hundred years, there will be nothing remaining from this day on her skin. But the scars will still be there."

Maruca scrubs at her face with her hands.

She can hear Fitz in the next room talking to his parents, swoops of anger filling the area before he remembers to keep his voice down. Della's sobs punctuate the conversation. Alden's voice is lower than usual, pieces of his crisp accent lost in raspy worry.

Sometimes, it's like it only took a day for their family to fall apart. But then Maruca remembers it really took two, even though she wasn't around for either of them.

One: Alden's mind break. Two: Alvar's betrayal.

She wonders if this day will be the third. She knows it would have been if Fitz and Dex had taken any longer, or if Livvy hadn't been in Atlantis, or if they hadn't found her in time.

Still, all she knows is that there was the last day she was there: when Della was smiling, when Alvar was making his stupid jokes, when Alden could tease his children without worrying about the consequences, when Fitz still had that laugh that didn't turn dark halfway through. When Biana's breaths were even and balanced and calm.

And then there was every day after. When she'd see them in public, or in meetings, or in school, and suddenly the memory of the planting scattered its leaves through every long-lasting look, or there was a missing piece from their unified front.

If they hadn't found her in time.

The thought is more than a prickle or a pang. It's an explosion, a road to a future without her. A future she never imagined, never wanted to imagine.

All the future she'd imagined consisted of kisses in the dark and smiles across a bright room and fingers tracing arms and thumbs scraping across cheekbones and dark hair twisted carelessly around a knuckle and limbs slung over stomachs—

Goodbye does not have to go both ways.

It doesn't even have to go one way. Biana never said goodbye, but neither did she. They never made a promise not to grow apart, but Maruca doesn't think it would have mattered.

In the end, it wasn't a clean break.

It was a drawn-out pull, like a strand of yarn from a threadbare sweater. It unraveled so quickly and so suddenly that all of a sudden Maruca was left with threads the size of hairs and no way to weave them back together. It took several months of wondering when it would happen and then all of a sudden she was gone.

Gone.

"I'm scared of losing you," Biana had told her once upon a time. Back before the first time falling apart. Not the Vackers, but them.

Well, great job, Bee. 'Cause now she's fucking terrified.

Biana stirs. 

Fitz is there immediately, thanks to his sixth sense that tells him whenever a sibling is either dying or betraying him. He leans over the bed, hand hovering an inch above her cheek, her hair, the closest he can be.

Maruca was scared for him, of him when she'd arrived. Eyes bloodshot, voice breaking every other word. He'd let go of her hand and then his nails had almost gone through his skin from clenching his fist too hard. He'd tried to smile at her and she caught a glimpse of a wild animal prowling, barely hidden anymore.

Dex had rested a hand on his shoulder, and it calmed and provoked him, sending him pacing and tearing his hands through his hair and eventually, sitting by her bed with his mouth moving, whispering to her what she'd never be able to hear. Dex sat beside him for hours, even if he's gone now, mixing elixirs for the scars that will never truly fade.

Maruca sits on her other side, staring at the bandages and thinking that maybe she should go into healing if only so she'd have some idea of how to be useful.

"Biana," Fitz whispers. Her eyes crack open.

Maruca almost retreats, but she's never hidden before and she refuses to now. She crosses her arms over her knees and twists her fingers together.

"Did we win?" Biana asks, her voice gravelly from sleep and screaming.

Fitz hesitates.

"They saved the city," Maruca says. Biana's eyes widen, flicker over. Then they drink her in like there's no one else she'd rather see and there it is. The reason she fell for her in the first place. That power, that makes her feel like no one else in the world matters, like no one else could make her complete. Maruca clears her throat and refuses to look away. "Linh did. And Sophie, Keefe. They saved Atlantis. Gisela tried to flood it, but they blocked up the barrier, held back the ocean."

Biana tries to sit up, mouth pressing into a fine line as she feels all the bandages over her neck, cheek, arm, and side. Fitz helps her, eyebrows pressed into a worried line. Still, relief eases the tension in his neck, the stiffness in his shoulders.

"So, did we win?" Biana repeats.

"Some will say yes. The Council will say yes." Maruca shrugs. She sees the gray in Biana's skin and can't imagine how it can fit together with victory. "I don't know."

"Sophie's parents," Fitz says. "They're safe. Everyone is safe."

Something eases in Biana's face. "Some losses. Important wins."

"You could say that," Maruca says. Biana looks at her again, and her eyes are tinted red from exhaustion and pain but still they carry with them the Vacker power. The one she's craved and hated for far too many years.

She's absorbed, as everyone ends up some way or another where Biana Vacker is concerned. It's not that she thinks of nothing else, but it is that along with all those other things she's still there, lingering just behind as an echo. Maruca considers a question on her Universe worksheet and finds the stars reflected in teal eyes.

This is the Vacker effect. The pull, the gravity of it enough to harness the moon into orbit. The power leaks from them like tea drips from a teabag once it's turned the boiling water dark. You can sense it when they walk into a room. Any of them, but especially her.

At least, this is what Maruca assumes everyone else sees.

For a moment, the feeling disappears and a weight takes its place in a band around Maruca's throat. The feeling is missing her, and it's not that it abates but that it's overwhelmed by hating her.

In the end, she's the first to look away.

[nervoustoastthing]

here ya go I guess

[synonymroll648]

no hummingbirds, no butterflies (just soft whirrs & peaceful daylight)

pairings/relationships: queerplatonic keefex, minor mentions of dex’s dynamics with his parents, + referenced dadwin (keefe & elwin as a parent-son duo of sorts)

tws: minor (autistic) overstimulation, anxiety, touch starvation, swearing, implied sexual humor (keefe’s here, what’d you expect), and i think that’s it - but please let me know if there’s more that should be added! 

summary: “I—okay, fine. You’re not patient with gadgets or alchemy or anything that’s a project,” Keefe laughs, and then his voice goes…gentle. Like midnight rain. “But you’re patient with people. You’re patient with me.”

You’re patient with me, Keefe says, and Dex thinks, What an interesting way to say ‘I love you’. 

-

OR: An exploration of what Keefe and Dex’s dynamic could’ve been if Keefe hadn’t run off to the forbidden cities.

additional notes: happy final day of @keefex-week 2023, even if this is for the day 1 prompt queerplatonic! i started this fic back in feburary as an ayyam-i-ha gift for the one and only wonderful @bookwyrminspiration​, but didn’t finish in time, and then i tried finishing it in time for its tumblr bday, and didn’t finish in time for that either. but at least i finished in time for this! i hope you enjoy the third draft of keefex being queerplatonic and neurodivergent (i wrote this with autistic!dex in the front of my mind. also, this entire fic was inspired by this keefex shitpost i made [and the really gay eckodon scene in book 4].) comments and constructive criticism are appreciated!

word count: 6.4k

ao3 link (recommended)

taglist: @gay-otlc @purplesoup-lad-le @when-wax-wings-melt @asexual-juliet @cowboypossume @xanadaus 

fic under the cut :)

Out of all the things that can surprise Dex Dizznee at 12:21am, getting hailed by Keefe Sencen isn’t one of them. 

The buzzing of his imparter laying on his bed cuts through the quiet ambiance of the noisemakers carefully placed in his room. The gadget Dex has mindlessly fidgeted with for minutes on end gets set down on his desk, and he carefully steps through the mess on his floor to pick up the hail. 

(After turning the volume down, because Keefe has accidentally woken up Dex’s parents from laughing too loud on more than one night like this.)

“Heeeey, Dexy,” Keefe deliriously croons across the line. 

Deliriously is the correct description, Dex knows, because Keefe only ever uses that tone when his guard is down—and after Loamnore, lowered guards only ever occur after a mental breakdown or from serious sleep deprivation. 

Or both.

“Hello to you too, at this totally reasonable hour for the two of us to be awake,” Dex sits down on the edge of his bed, tucking his feet up onto the mattress. 

A snicker. “Tooooootally.” 

Dex does a brief internal analysis of his face—he doesn’t have enough time to be thorough without being awkward, but no mental notes at all is bound to leave him floundering later on in the conversation. 

Dark circles → Keefe is probably at least halfway out of his mind.

Bedhead → Keefe is definitely at least halfway out of his mind.

Lots of blankets and pillows → Keefe is either content or in the middle of an existential crisis. 

Slightly more prominent freckles across the bridge of his nose than usual →  Congratulate Keefe on getting some sunshine. 

Keefe starts talking again, and Dex is glad that he doesn’t have to be the one to resume conversation. “What’d I interrupt?” 

“Me trying to get work done for the Black Swan or school but being too tired to think properly.” 

“I’m guessing you’re also too awake to go to sleep.” 

“Bingo,” Dull exasperation on Dex’s end. 

“Relatable.” Fatigue softens the ‘t’ so much that it’s only implied at best. Relatable is surrender wearing a humorous mask; Keefe’s favorite shield.

You need to say something. It’s the start to an all-too familiar chain reaction. He almost lists out all the ways You need to say something evolves into something much more panic-inducing, since lists usually help, but this is one of those few exceptions where listing it all out will screw him over. 

So Dex starts on the steps to prevent that, with an inhale quiet enough that Keefe hopefully doesn’t think he’s sighing. Next is grasping for something to contribute. Something silly, preferably. 

Dex is a second slower to reply than he’d like, but he finds something that works. His headspace relaxes once he asks, “Is the bingo card or the bingo pieces or the bingo itself relatable?” 

“Hmmmmm, good question…” Keefe tilts his gaze up to the ceiling of his starry bedroom at Splendor Plains. 

Dex takes his thoughtful pause as an opportunity to study Keefe further. He notes gulon pajamas, and eyelashes that are long and dark and confusingly nice to look at—which makes him think of the eckodon ride to Alluveterre, the first time he’d really noticed them—which makes heat begin to fester under his skin, because that was a lot of physical contact and—

—Keefe starts talking again, and it’s enough to get his brain to shut up. “Bingo pieces, probably. Sometimes I get put in situations where things work out, and sometimes I get put in situations where they don’t. Comes down to everyone else’s luck.” 

The Keefe is either content or in the middle of an existential crisis part of Dex’s mental notes from earlier resurfaces at the front of his mind, and he leans a little more towards preparing for helping Keefe through an existential crisis. 

Then Dex leans a few degrees back into the or part of the note, once Keefe cracks, “Kinda like all the backstories we came up with for Keebler elves.” 

Laughter, fast and loose and loud, threatens to explode out of Dex’s chest. He quickly covers his mouth, unable to help looking away and throwing his head back while he tries to not disturb the sleepy nighttime air that blankets Rimeshire. 

When Dex looks back down at Keefe, there’s a proud grin crinkling the corners of his eyes, smushed up against the cozy mess of his bedding. Keefe wrestles a hand out from under the blankets it was trapped under, and points directly at his imparter camera. “You thought it was funny, don’t deny it,” 

“I won’t,” Dex relents. A wistful sigh almost turns into snickers, since he’s apparently spent way too many nights talking with Keefe over the past few months. “That was probably the funnest reason for pulling an all-nighter.” 

A giggle. More than one giggle, actually. A whole stream of them, like a human song kids would get hooked on. (Giggles. Keefe is undoubtedly delirious, guaranteed to be more than halfway out of his mind. There’s no other explanation for him being so light and sunny at 12:26 in the morning.) “Best all-nighter eeee-ver! No school, just the silly.” 

Dex arcs an eyebrow like the sunrise that’s hours away. “The silly?” 

“The silly!” Beaming a childish grin, Keefe’s fist punches out of his heap of blankets and up into the air, almost as if he’s cheering for something. 

The force of it sends Keefe’s imparter—wherever it’s propped up on—toppling over. The view on Dex’s imparter shifts to close-up constellations behind glass. He hasn’t done well enough in his Universe class to be able to identify anything before Keefe cries, “Dex! Mrs. Stinkbottom! My dearest companions! Noooooooo!” 

This time, Dex has to gently bite down on his knuckles to keep himself from laughing too loud. 

(Dex has to stop himself from wondering too much about the depth behind My dearest companions too. Because he’s gone down far too many rabbit holes about whether or not he’s romantically attracted to Keefe and been left with a confusing answer of no, but also not being satisfied with the label platonic either. He just focuses on the joy of someone finding him valuable outside of his tech and alchemy skillsets.) 

There’s a smile on Dex’s face so wide it makes him feel dumb as he watches Keefe lean over his bed to try and grab at his imparter. Awkwardly angled footage goes a little fuzzy as Mrs. Stinkbottom gets pulled up before Dex. Well, not Dex, the imparter, since Dex is leaned back against his pillow and headboard and not collapsed on Keefe’s bedroom floor, but no one cares about technicalities like that other than Dex. 

Finally, Keefe’s hand presumably wraps around his imparter, and Dex’s screen is a blur as Keefe hauls ‘him’ up. “I got a little too silly for the world to handle,” he pouts. 

“The world? I don’t think me and Mrs. Stinkbottom count as the world. Pretty sure there’s a lot more to the world than that.” 

“Well, that’s the only part of the world I care about right now.” 

Don’t read into it, don’t read into it, don’t read into it— 

Dex doesn’t read into it. Because he’s a master at this seemingly mythical thing called self-restraint, if his friends are anything to go by. “I dunno, I’m pretty sure you care about your blankets and pillows right now,” 

Keefe’s lips thin into a disconcerted line. “...Yeah, I do. Caught me red-handed,” he mumbles, relaxing further into the comfortable disaster he’s wrapped himself in. “But that’s it.” 

You sure about that? he wants to ask, but takes the few seconds of silence to consider his options and turn the conversation towards something else instead. “How much have you slept?” 

Things That Would Replicate Keefe’s Hysterical Laughter at That Question When Mixed Together Properly:

Tea kettles when their contents are boiling. 

Monkeys screeching. 

Gasps from someone who almost drowned. Or ran a long distance at a high speed and finally got to stop. Or something like that. 

A recording of someone’s sobbing or laughing that could pass as both to unaware listeners.

It’s a little startling—startling enough that he jumps at the unexpected change in sound. Frantically, he turns down his imparter volume. And then Dex tries to climb under his covers as quietly as he can and curls up on his side, so he can fake being asleep if his mom pops in to check on him. (She’s a light sleeper, which she’s jokingly coined as her proof that she married into the Dizznee family instead of being born into it.) 

Keefe wipes at his eyes. “You gotta specify a time frame, Dex. Tonight? The last twenty four hours? The last week? Etcetera,” 

It takes a blip of time to remember what they’re talking about. “Last twenty four hours.” 

“I took a nap after lunch. Ro woke me up for dinner. After that, I painted until I spilled my water jar on accident. Cleaning up made me realize how tired I was, so I tried to sleep. Buuuuut…” Something about the way Keefe’s facial expression just barely shifts makes Dex suspect that he’s either gonna cough up a hard truth or lie to cover it up. “my brain wouldn’t shut off. And now we’re here.” 

Dex takes a shot in the dark—literally. The only thing lighting up his room is his open curtains. Moonlight washes the room in pale silvers and a whole scale of blues. “Was it that you couldn’t stop thinking period, or you couldn’t stop thinking about the wrong things?” 

The steady, easy rise and fall of Keefe’s form stills. It resumes when Keefe sighs and says, “Does anything get past you?” 

I’ve spent my whole life analyzing everything to the best of my ability, because I’ve spent my whole life out of the loop and fighting to get in it. It’s late at night, and your guard’s down. Of course nothing you do gets past me. Too serious, too blunt. Killjoy of a response. Dex condenses it into something lighter, but still truthful. “When it comes to you, no, not that I know of.” 

“I feel like that’s a sign that I’ve overshared on one too many nightly hails over the past few months,” Keefe tries to laugh it off, but Dex can sense the nervous undertone. 

“I mean, if it makes you uncomfortable, I can stop you next time you try to open up,” Dex offers. He hopes Keefe doesn’t take him up on it. 

Dread begins to stir in his stomach as Keefe pauses to consider. It dissipates when Keefe says, “Nahhh, I trust you to not take advantage of me being stupid. Also, like—actually, you know what? Can I ramble about something? The only way my brain can make points is through stories right now. But if you want me to shut up, that’s fine.” 

“Ramble away,” Dex says. It’s nice being your number one person to talk to, even if I’m sure it won’t last forever. 

“Okay, so, earlier today—well, technically yesterday now, but no one cares—anyways. Anyways.” Keefe clears his throat, fist in front of his mouth. Eyebrows downturn in a way that’s either ironically or unironically serious; Dex can’t tell. 

Dex poorly suppresses a smile. Turns up the volume again to hear him better, and resolves to just remind Keefe, No sudden noises please, if he gets too loud again. 

“So basically, after Ro woke me up, Elwin knocked on my doorway today and told me dinner was ready if I was hungry. It was in the usual spot he leaves it for me since being in the same room as people is hard and he’s cool about me eating alone, y’know? I feel like I told you about that already, but whatever.” (Keefe has indeed told Dex about this routine. On multiple occasions.) “I hear his footsteps walking away, and I open the door and I say ‘Elwin?’”

“Out loud, or using signs?”

“Out loud,” Keefe confirms.

It’s been a month or two since Keefe managed to start saying short phrases to people aloud again, but it’s still difficult enough—especially without preparation beforehand—that it’s always a surprise to hear him mention talking out loud face-to-face recently. Dex’s eyebrows nearly touch his hairline. He holds back the Wow, Keefe, incredible job—genuinely, ready to jump off the cliff’s edge of his tongue. Lets Keefe keep talking. 

“So he turns around and he tilts his head in this way that’s like, hey, keep going. My nerves started acting up, but I managed to ask if we could eat at the table together. I had to clear my throat and clarify—well, I was really just rambling, but whatever—that sitting, like, right next to him would be too much. And I’d probably have to sit on the opposite end of the table, but he told me that was totally fine. No disappointment or anything. And we—we actually had a conversation. Not just a few sentences. I could keep up with talking back and forth for longer than a few minutes. And there was this point where he said…” Keefe stops. “He said, um. Hang on.” 

Keefe flops his face into his pillow. Dex suppresses an instinctual smile at the unintelligible noises that come out of Keefe’s throat, because he doesn’t know if they’re positive or negative. Yet. 

So he asks. “Is this good or bad?” 

Keefe nods. Confusion forms in a crease between Dex’s eyebrows. Some absurd part of Dex suspects Keefe can sense it through the screen, because he turns his face towards his imparter and clarifies, “Good. I think. I’ve just forgotten how to handle affection in general. And I’ve never known how to handle it from parental figures.” 

Parental figures has delighted surprise lighting up Dex’s face for a split second before he smooths his expression out into something neutral again. Elwin’s always been a lot better than Cassius. Keefe maybe, just maybe, finding someone else to call ‘dad’ or something like it would be good for him. 

Dex hopes they get there. Eventually. 

Dex also doesn’t know if it’s too early to tell Keefe that, so he errs on the side of caution. “From what I’ve heard you tell me, I don’t think Elwin minds that you don’t really know what you’re doing. But what did Elwin say to you? You cut yourself off.”

Keefe blinks, a bit slow to respond. “Sorry, I was processing that first sentence. Uh. He said that he was really proud of me. For,” —Keefe’s laugh in between words is bittersweet— “being so brave about all of this. And I thought he was playing up how he felt to make me feel better, so I told him that he didn’t have to lie to me. Then he told me that he was being dead serious, and he was sorry he didn’t say it more often. And he tried complimenting me more, but, um, I—I told him to stop because I didn’t want to start crying, y’know? Especially since I couldn’t—can’t hug him. Or anything like that,” 

Dex doesn’t really know how this relates to whatever point(s?) Keefe was trying to make earlier about trusting Dex, but he’ll roll with the punches. “I’m not a professional on emotions or anything, but I think it’s okay to get overwhelmed by someone being nice to you when you’re used to literally nothing at best.” 

“That’s…” Keefe goes quiet. Dex wonders if he said the right or wrong thing. Hopefully it was right. It feels right, at least. “That’s good to hear. Thanks.” 

“No problem,” Dex says, and gives him a tired smile. Not because he’s tired of Keefe, but because it’s who knows what hour in the morning now and Dex has been on a losing streak with his sleep schedule for roughly a week now. 

Keefe sighs. “I wish I could hug you,” he whines. “You’re always so nice about putting up with my bullshit, and you’re cute when you’re tired, and I call you all the time but I still miss you because it’s not the same as when I could wrap my arm around you and say I’ve got you, Dexy, without physical consequences.” 

There are many, many things that Dex could think in response to that. There are many, many things that Dex does think in response to that. But the first thing that comes to mind is if this conversation had been a string of imparter texts, Keefe would have written something along the lines of “:(((“ at least once just now. 

Keefe bulldozes on. “Like, you’re so…patient,” 

And then Dex cuts him off with a snort. “You are the first person I have ever heard call me patient. Ever.” 

“I—okay, fine. You’re not patient with gadgets or alchemy or anything that’s a project,” Keefe laughs, and then his voice goes…gentle. Like midnight rain. “But you’re patient with people. You’re patient with me.”

You’re patient with me, Keefe says, and Dex thinks, What an interesting way to say ‘I love you’. 

It’s an observation. Not a revelation, because Dex has known for months now that his dynamic with Keefe is defined by oddities. They are misfits on the outskirts of everything they know. They are two boys that don’t fit neatly into any boxes—one with a genetically modified ability that’s drastically altered his life in ways no one knows how to fix, and the other the son of a bad match that’s become a regent at 15 and a Black Swan technopath even younger. They are more than that, too, and they see all of that more in each other. They see all the mundane more and the wild more and all the more in between that doesn’t fit into any box society likes. They’ve been seeing more of all the more in one another over these past few months, and scrapping their discoveries together like spare parts into something that’s probably confusing and worthless to the rest of the world, but it works for them.

Progressing without refining, coloring outside the lines—it’s not what mechanics or artists are supposed to do, but for this piece, for their style, for their invention, it works for them.

This weird version of love that they have, that seems to permanently float either between or outside platonic and romantic binaries (Dex is too sleepy to tell): it works for them.

It works for them.

“You make being patient worth it, Keefe. You always do, in the long run.”

Half-lidded eyes shoot wide, and Dex can’t tell if the glaze over icy irises is due to tears or lighting until Keefe’s turning away and whining, “Dex, what the fuck did I say about not wanting to cry?” 

Dex is glad that his words touched Keefe, since his hands can’t. Appreciation presents itself through amused exhales at the smile on Keefe’s face that won’t go away. “I thought you liked honesty, though?” he teases. 

Keefe rolls back over in his twist of bedding to glare at his imparter, but it looks more like a pout. “Yeah, but I also like not having a crisis over whether or not—I’m pretending I live in an ideal world that doesn’t hate me, by the way—I want to draw you a bajillion times or paint you a bajillion times or tickle fight you until you’re in hysterics because I like the way your laugh sounds or hug you for an eon normally or hug you for an eon the way we did on the eckodon or if I want to kiss you. And I know that last part’s probably overreacting, but also, I can’t tell if it’s wanting to, like, kiss you on the cheek? Or more than that? Or less? Which makes things harder and way more confusing,” 

Dex’s eyebrows aren’t practically touching his hairline, they are touching his hairline. (In spirit. Because eyebrow muscles don’t work like that in the real world. He thinks.) Dex adds You want a REPEAT of the eckodon ride? onto his mental list of conversation topics, then asks the slightly more pressing question he got from Keefe’s rambling: “You want to kiss me?” 

Because Keefe Sencen? Renowned heartthrob that had half the girls at Foxfire wrapped around his finger without even trying that hard? Wanting to kiss him? Him? Dex Dizznee? The sheer notion was fucking absurd. Bonkers. Ridiculous.

“I mean—like—listen—okay, just, just let me explain before your brain runs wild, I know how you are,” Keefe splutters.

Dex suppresses a grin at Keefe being the flustered one for once. “Oh, I’m definitely listening.” 

“Okay, so, first off, kissing was a brief idea that popped into my head when I thought, How do I show Dex how much I care about him? Kind of like an afterthought. And the original afterthought was, like, impulsively kissing your cheek. In a goofy way. Not full-on making out with you or anything.” Keefe pauses, and two things shift in the meantime: Keefe’s facial expression tipping off of panic into thoughtfulness, and Dex’s facial color gradually sliding from its pale base color to a blush that only gets more vivid as Keefe talks. “Though I probably wouldn’t complain if we made out, but it’s not something I’m yearning for every second of every day or anything. The possibility only just hit me, after all. I want it if you want it, I mean. But if you don’t, I’m all good. We’re all good.” 

Dex blinks. Throws all caution to the wind, and thinks about it. Thinks about whether or not he’d like that kind of kissing from Keefe. Keefe would most likely start slow, because that feels like a Keefe thing to do, so Dex imagines that. Imagines how he might feel if they were whispering to directly into each other’s ears instead of each other’s imparters, if Keefe pulled him in for a kiss instead of keeping his distance without compromising himself—

—and almost immediately thinks No thanks. Which is a little odd, since he likes the way Keefe looks and acts, but his stomach hollows out at the idea of another mouth moving over his, no matter how kind the intention. Mashing two mouths together is an overrated display of affection hyped up too much by mom’s romcoms and other romance enthusiasts is the explanation for it that pops up into Dex’s head. The lack of spark or pull that Dex feels towards kissing in general plus the weirdness of textures and germs interacting through mouth to mouth contact probably factors into his opinion too.

Overriding that kind of mind and body instinct feels wrong, so Dex offers up more honesty to Keefe. “I think I’ll pass on the kissing. Making-out kissing, at least. Kissing anyone makes me feel weird—a bad kind of weird, if you get what I mean.” 

“Sir yes sir!” Keefe barks out, giving him a cheesy salute, and Dex giggles. “Thank you for making it easier to make my brain shut up about kissing you. The identity crisis prevention is appreciated.” 

“Of course, of course,” Dex jests. “But for the record, I don’t think you potentially wanting to kiss boys in general is a bad thing. As long as they’re good for you, y’know?” 

Quiet overlays Keefe’s demeanor, and Dex can practically hear the gears in his brain turning. Processing. Then Keefe gives a small smile and says, “Thanks, Dex. I’ll keep it in mind. Buuuuuut,” Keefe claps his hands suddenly, and Dex nearly jumps out of his skin. “I’m not in the mood for heavy introspection right now! Soooo…maybe you could tell me about the things I said that you’d be okay and not okay with instead? For the sake of, like, boundaries and stuff.” 

“Ah, yes. Discussing boundaries when we’re both sleep deprived and not thinking straight. Incredibly intelligent move.” 

Dex apparently didn’t put enough lightheartedness into his deadpan, because Keefe scrambles to backtrack. “I mean, yeah, you have a point, we can do that sometime later in daylight, or later, or never. Whatever you feel like. No worries.” 

“I was joking. We can and probably should talk about it now, even if we’re not 100% functioning,” Dex reassures. 

“Okay. Um. Where do you want to start?” 

Dex references his mental conversation prep list, and plucks out a relevant item he hasn’t used yet. (He will use the sunshine comment before the end of this hail, or so help him.) “Can we talk about the whole ‘basically wanting a repeat of the eckodon ride’ thing? Because in the moment you seemed pretty eager to end that, and I’m simultaneously confused and curious at your…change of heart, so to speak.” 

A hypothesis Dex will never be able to test the accuracy of: If Keefe weren’t under the weak starlight of his bedroom walls and somewhere brighter in this moment, Dex would be able to see a flush crawling over Keefe’s ears. Perhaps even over his cheeks, too. The musing is based on evidence—the hand running through Keefe’s bedhead, the loaded exhale, the averted gaze, the upper teeth worrying his lower lip. 

Anxiously, Keefe chants strings of swears under his breath before composing himself a little. “First things first, just to know how much of my dignity I’m losing here at whatever time of night it is right now, can you tell me how often you think about the eckodon ride? And what you think of it, if you do think of it at all?” 

Oh god. Dex had not prepped for actually talking about that. At all. 

So much for not floundering later on in the conversation, he curses his past self. 

“Do you want me to start right now and then just pause and backtrack when I word things wrong, or do you want me to try and get things sorted out before I talk?” Clarification and a counterattack, a delay of the inevitable. 

“Take your time,” Keefe murmurs. 

Dex does. While Keefe breathes in a purposeful pattern he messes up every now and then, Dex rearranges the scramble of thoughts in his head until every piece is in the right place. And then he double checks to make sure it’s right. And when he thinks Maybe I should triple check, he forces the words out into a freefall and hopes that when they collide into the connection between him and Keefe, it won’t hurt. “Before I get into emotional vulnerability, I would like to say that I still stand by my opinion that your breath stunk. You need to invest in having carry-on breath mints at all times, dude.” 

Keefe bursts out laughing, and it’s everything from playful ocean waves curling and splashing at his lower legs on a shoreline walk to distant melodies whispered in the wind. “I’ll do that, next time I go out,” Keefe promises, and for now, only Dex will ever know how big it is to hear Keefe make plans for a more social future he said he’d given up on at the beginning of these nighttime hails. “But only if you do too. Because I swear, your breath rivaled gulon farts, my guy.” 

But only if you do too. My guy. It softens Dex like the glow of the stars outside his window. His smile is a crescent in the dark. “Fine, fine, I will. Maybe I’ll make my own and hail you so you can watch alchemy antics.” 

“Please do. But finish talking first.” 

Dex takes a deep breath. “Okay. Uh. Where was I?” 

“Emotional vulnerability, I think?” 

Exhale, trace back to which thought he left off on, and go. Hurtle out of comfort and into the brilliantly terrifying unknown. Speak before the end of the fall. “Right, emotional vulnerability time. I don’t think of the eckodon ride every second of every day or anything. But it pops up from time to time. More often when I’m talking to you, of course, but it’s not like I can hear whale songs or see Z-shaped objects without at least briefly thinking about it. As for what I think of the eckodon ride, I think…” Dex falters. Stumbles. His carefully constructed thoughts flutter just out of reach. 

What was I thinking earlier? What have I thought about it before? “I think it was nice. Confusingly nice, but nice. I felt—it felt—it was different. A lot more physical contact than I was used to. And I guess I liked looking at you close up more than I was willing to admit before. Noticing little details was interesting—like how long your eyelashes are, since I didn’t really have anywhere to look but your eyes and I usually try to look close to people’s eyes but not quite since I get distracted by their eyes when they talk if I make eye contact, but we weren’t talking, and I just got to look, and—ugh, I’m rambling. That sounds weird. My words aren’t, I dunno what the word is—wording? Right? That’s wrong, but whatever. My words aren’t wording. You get what I mean.” 

Dex drags his hands down his face, and grimaces at the light layer of sweat that’s built up there in such a small amount of time. Has the freefall ended yet? Will his stomach please stop hollowing out? 

The freefall crashes to an end, and Dex slips out of the wind into into safe waters when Keefe asks, “So you didn’t mind how close we were the whole time?” 

With only the moon as a witness, the timidness in Keefe’s voice is clear. With only the moon as a witness, all the air empties out of Dex’s lungs when he says “I didn’t really mind, but I thought you did,” into what feels like six feet underneath the sky. 

Thuds pulse loudly in his veins and ears in the real silence. Every gentle slide of fabric moving with the crests and troughs of Dex’s breathing feels like the edge of too much, but Dex doesn’t know which side of the edge it falls onto. Staring at his imparter is too much now, too, so he turns his face into his pillow and swipes his thumb back and forth across his sheets as a nearly futile distraction from his frazzled senses. 

Keefe reels him out of it, out of the increasingly weird stimulation levels and the imaginary water. “I didn’t really mind either, and I didn’t know what to do with that, so I shoved you away and jumped to something that I understood. And then I tried not to think about it. Which worked for a while, but then Loamnore happened, and now it’s really hard to not think about how much I miss being close to people, which makes it extra hard to not think about the eckodon ride when I’m around you, and now we’re here.”

A hum vibrates in Dex’s throat; it resonates with all the gadgets scattered around his room on sleep mode. “So originally, you didn’t want to fully process the eckodon ride, but now that you have, you miss that kind of proximity?” 

“Yes,” Keefe breathes out a syllable and longing. 

“That makes sense,” Dex nods to himself. 

Contemplation lulls talking from either end of the line to sleep for a little while, but not Dex. Yet. At some point, Dex’s imparter slipped so that he couldn’t see Keefe and Keefe couldn’t see him. Not focusing on the changes in his expressions and environment, when it’s so late and quiet and Dex woke up at 2am yesterday and hasn’t slept since, makes it a little difficult to stay awake. 

“So if I end up being able to handle touching people at some point in the future,” Keefe starts, and Dex starts at the sudden verbalism and the hope in his voice that they both thought he’d lost, “kissing you is a no, but hugs are a yes?” 

“Hugs are a yes,” Dex agrees. 

“What about, um—” Keefe stops short. 

Laziness compels Dex to flick his imparter upright with telekinesis instead of just reaching over and grabbing it. He raises an eyebrow at Keefe. “What about what?” 

Dex is the furthest thing the elvin world knows to an empath, and yet. And yet. He can feel Keefe’s embarrassment through the countless miles separating Rimeshire and Splendor Plains. Keefe’s almost completely buried beneath blankets, pressed deep enough into his pillow that only some messy blond tufts are visible. 

“This is so stupid,” Keefe grumbles into fabric. 

“I think this is rather funny, actually. Hilarious, even,” Keefe can’t see Dex’s shit-eating grin. “Share with the class, Keefe. How were you gonna finish that sentence? Be honest,” 

(Dex turns down his imparter volume to the lowest setting. Just in case a certain froster is wandering around the halls with those silent mom feet of hers and walks in at the worst time possible.) 

Dex thinks he hears Keefe mumble holding hands, but that seems far too innocent to be correct, so he asks, “What?” 

Keefe pops up out of his cocoon. He looks like he wants to shrivel up and disappear to somewhere that’s anywhere but near his imparter. “Holding hands. That’s how I was going to end the sentence.” 

Suspicion narrows Dex’s eyes. “Considering the kind of jokes you like to make, I feel like it takes more than the idea of holding hands to get you flustered,” 

“Not anymore,” 

Dex can’t tell if Keefe is whining or scraping the surface of loneliness that he’s shoved aside for tonight, and decides it’s a good idea to pull him away from that. He can lament his losses when the sun’s there to smatter more freckles along the bridge of his nose. “Getting back to the point—you wanted to know how I felt about you wanting to hold my hand?” 

Slowly, Keefe nods. 

“I don’t see why it’d be anything to get flustered about. We used to hold hands for light leaping all the time. Extending that doesn’t seem like a huge deal, in this hypothetical.” 

“How the fuck are you so chill about this but I’m not,” Keefe says, and yeah, he’s definitely whining now. 

Dex laughs. “My serious answer is because 1) I’m not touch starved and 2) we’re talking theoreticals, and my emotions kind of take a backseat during conversations like these so my critical thinking skills can take the wheel, since it feels like there’s no stakes since it’s all, as I said, theoretical. My joking answer, on the other hand, is because I’m cooler than you.” 

Keefe cracks a smile. “True, true,” 

“Anything else you wanted to talk about?” 

“Is there anything else I said earlier that you’re not cool with?” Keefe returns. 

“List it off again?” 

“Uhhhh…” What some humans would call Keefe’s ‘Adam’s apple’ bobs as he tips his head back and thinks. He raises one hand and flips up a finger for each item he rattles off. “Stuff we haven’t talked about yet: Me wanting to draw you a bajillion times, me wanting to paint you a bajillion times, me wanting to get into a tickle fight with you just because I like how your laugh sounds, and teeeechnically cuddling?” 

This is the kind of thing that Dex should probably have to mull over for a while, but answers come to him oddly easily. “All of those are fine, but I will warn you that I might kick you on instinct if you tickle me too much. Which isn’t that hard. My dad makes fun of me all the time for still being ticklish. He said that Dizznees usually have built up immunity to tickles by my age.” 

Keefe blinks. Numerous times. Exaggeratedly. “Normally I’d be losing my mind at you being cool with me using you as a pillow for no reason, but I’m way too stuck on tickle immunity being a thing you can build up.” 

Dex forgets to be quiet with his wheezing. “Dude, I have so many whack stories about things me and my family have done that have to do with tickling. Like, my dad said that when he was a level two he’d make elixirs specifically to give him vampire fangs so he could bite his siblings harder when they tried to tickle him,” 

The tea kettle monkey screeching hysterical laughter from before comes back with a vengeance, and Dex is very glad his imparter is as quiet as it can be without deafening Keefe out entirely. “I need the full story now,” he gasps out. 

“You’re in for a ride,” Dex says, settling into a more comfortable position on his bed. But then he remembers one thing he swore he’d say before this hail ended, and makes sure to look the camera head on when he comments, “Oh, by the way, before I don’t shut up for another three hours, good job getting some sunshine. The freckles look nice on you.” 

Horror rounds Keefe’s eyes comically. He frantically runs his fingers along his cheeks as if his aforementioned freckles were braille spelling out some awful message on his face. “You can see them?” 

“How else would I know they look nice on you?” 

Keefe groans and curls up like the roly poly bugs Dex loved to pick up as a kid. Keefe’s imparter falls forward, and the imparter screen thumps into fuzzy blackness. “I chase Bullhorn around the property so Elwin can have a break for a day one time, and this is how the world rewards me,” 

“As I basically told you already: I think it’s a great reward. Anyway. Wanna hear about just how petty my family gets or not?” 

“I’m 100% down, Dexy. Hit me with good old storytime.” 

Storytelling hasn’t ever really been Dex’s thing, but Keefe doesn’t seem to have high standards, which is nice. (The other explanation is that Dex is better at storytelling than he thinks, which he refuses to believe because he hates being wrong about anything ever.) He laughs more than Dex expected, and insists on getting his sketchbook at one point to draw out certain parts, and then they both giggle so hard they can’t breathe. They gesture and talk and talk and talk until Keefe says his throat and ribs hurt, and Dex agrees on that last part. 

Dex’s last thought before his breathing slows and evens out is some hazy musing of how nice it is that he can be Keefe’s person without having to feel hummingbirds or butterflies to get there. 

Both of their imparters are on when they fall asleep to soft whirrs and wake up to peaceful daylight.

[fucked-up-mover-shaker]

BOOK 10: ELYSIAN SIGN UPS

ALRIGHT! I HAVE ENOUGH INTEREST, IT IS TIME!

First off, the outline of everything we will be using in our creation of book 10, or Elysian (Endgame is a great name, but Marvel), as I call it.

Next, everything I'm using in Elysian.

I am also tagging everyone who has helped me come up with ideas, as well as edited, since we share one braincell, and have a lot of similar things.

Sorry for cut it's LONG

@moonlarked

Marellinh

Council gets overthrown

Sophie gets to kill Mr Forkle

Alvar dies in Fitz’s arms

Sophie starts an human outreach program

Jensi remains Talentless and helps other Talentless

Exillium gets to be relevant

Tiertice adopt Tam and Linh and Rayni

Fedex

Ruy appears and does something idk

Trix joins up with the gang

@the-great-gullon-incident

Biana, Stina, and Dex team up

Biana has a sword

Sophie teaches the rest of the keeper gang about lgbtq+ people

Crazy fights

Gethen and Ruy show up to do stuff

They/them Elysian

All the mysteries are finally revealed

@stopstealingtomatoes

Lady Gisela to die

Amy to have a bigger role

Lord Cassius to either formally apologize to Keefe or else shove a stick in it

T h e r a p y

Ships to finally sail

@amandayetagain

Elysian’s big naturals

frognate rings

explicit language

vertina pagetime

more void lore

Sophie strikes out on her own and forms her own group

we learn about Keefe’s human friends

Details on some of the parents top secret missions (mentioned in their unlocked files)

Embarrassing middle name for keefe

foot power

Sophie channels someone’s heart/skull, or uses telekinesis on someone’s neck (it’s them or her friends. And she’s already lost enough.)

Biana and Sophie commit arson again (Neverseen)

@you-have-been-frizzled

JENSI PAGE TIME

the triplets

Kesline

Elwin officially adopting Keefe

Biana kills somebody (can we just bring Vespra back so she can kill her)

Tam gets hurt and Linh goes batshit

Bronte with curly hair

Sophie eats sweet and sour chicken to everyone’s horror

MORE ARSON

Alina redemption arc (literally wouldn’t suggest this but Ciara is the one running it and they’re part of the Alina deserves redemption club)

Dex losing an arm (his name means right handed it’s ironic oaky!)

Tiergan punches Quan song when he tries to say something to the twins

Sandor and Giselle scenes

KESLER AND GRADY BROMANCE I CANT BELIEVE I FORGOT ABOUT THEM

Juline and Edaline being sisters

Keefe and Grady bonding

Alvar isn’t dead and gets redemption

Caprice is relevant other than just being the crazy lady

@official-kenralie-fanbase

Sophie loses it during a battle to fulfill the whole "the moonlark could tear this whole place down" thing

Sandor finally has to dance in sparkly pants

Someone punches Alden

Or Cassius

Or both. At the same time.

More of Grady's mesmerizing please and thank you

Gradaline moments

Sophie's dad reveal (maybe do a poll on who people think that should be? I'm hoping for Fintan)

Oralie actually fights in a battle

Someone finds out about Oralie and there's a bunch of drama with all the people

@ever-blaze

more jensi, dex and rayni

jensi not manifesting an ability yet playing more roles in the story (eg. fighting the neverseen with a weapon or something)

keefe and fitz friendship moments/actually being best friends again

MORE OF THE TRIPLETS !!!

more backstories? tinkers maybe?

blur or wraith or tinkers identities

the return of the amazing amy foster

keefe’s human friends (hoping at least one is a celebrity) and human world adventures

------

Next, breaking this up. Anyone can join, I just need people to help organize this, and the plan is we sort it up by character/group, and eventually break it down into chapters, ordered by what would make sense in a basic plot structure. Then we will start figuring out technical things such as who is writing what.

Simply send me an ask or message if you're interested in helping me organize this!

And, if you have any and all suggestions, feel free to tell me!

REBLOGS >>>>>> LIKES

[theunmappedstar]

unfortunately genuinely considering deleting all of my fics off of AO3 because they are being scrapped to feed AI. just wanted to let you know in case you suddenly can’t find them

[crymeariveronceagain]

Do I have problems? Yeah.

I had a rough week and I wrote crappy fic in the course of an hour and a half. :D It's exactly what it sounds like.

Here's the soundtrack:

[mxnkeydo]

so scarlet (it was maroon) ✧ sokeefe

✧ ship: Sophie x Keefe

✧ what to expect: it all went down went a book went soaring across the classroom but sophie never expects it to end the way it does. acrylic smeared on cheeks, pigment-stained clothes, and a whole keefe sencen later, maybe she never despised him as much as she thought she did.

✧ genre: romance, fluff, humor, sarcasm - enemies to lovers trope, human au, and a love triangle to torment you guys 😈

✧ word count: 1.58k

✧ warnings: mild use of swearing

✧ link to masterlist

✧ link to chapter six

✧ link to chapter eight

✧ A/N: I LOVE THIS CHAPTER SM AHHHH i hope you love it as much as i do!!!! (i know this chapter is all fluff, but be prepared for some angsty chapters ahead...MUAHAHAHAHA)

✧ taglist: @swans-chirping-in-the-distance @somerandomhuman080 @foxglove-and-foxfire-lover @carolineforbae

reblogs would be most appreciated! :)))

***

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Why the hell is your shirt so wet?”

Keefe stopped in his tracks, mentally bracing himself for an argument or a lecture. Slowly, he turned to face his father.

“It’s nothing,” he settled for, trying to escape the situation, but Cassius took one big stride closer to grip his son’s varsity jacket by the collar. Keefe whipped his head to the side; the cigarette smell coming from his mouth was too much to bear.

“Oh, but it’s something,” his father insisted. “What did you do this time, you useless delinquent?”

“I got paint on my shirt, that’s all!”

“Well. Wouldn’t expect anything better from you.” Cassius snorted. “No dinner for you tonight. Go up to your room and stay there, you hear me boy?”

Keefe’s rebellious streak suddenly emerged and he shot back, “I’m not ability challenged, you know. I can hear just fine.”

Cassius shoved him back so hard, Keefe hit the wall with an “oof”. His father only laughed cruelly and strolled the other way like he hadn’t just abused his only son–whose elbow was probably damaged from the impact. Keefe gripped his injured arm and scurried up the stairs, half in fear and half because he needed to get away from everyone. There was someone who could make him feel better, but he was too tired to call her. Plus, he was ninety-nine percent sure she wouldn’t want to be around a depressed kid who didn’t have his feelings set straight. In this state, he would most likely embarrass himself in the worst way possible. It was better for everyone if he was left alone.

Just before Keefe went to sleep, he removed the false bottom from his drawer and rummaged through. Once his fingers brushed against a spiral notebook, he pulled it out and settled in his bed, taking off his shirt to wrap it around his arm like a sling. And with a deep breath, he pressed his pencil to the paper.

Keefe let his hands completely take over, drawing curved lines and shading different sections. He drew two perfect eyes, tiny flecks surrounding the iris. He sketched her full lips, her blinding beam, the way her left eye had more lashes than the other since she always pulled on them.

When he was finished, he was left with a portrait of Sophie Elizabeth Foster staring up at him with a wide, innocent look. Keefe gripped his notebook, not able to take his eyes off her. How a girl like her had come into his life so suddenly, he didn’t know. But the universe seemed to taunt him with the fact that she would never be his.

The funny part? Keefe already belonged to her.

✧✧✧

Sophie and Keefe had just stepped into her house when her phone rang with a notification. “What now?” Sophie sighed as she pulled it out. Keefe leaned forward to see but the glare of the lights made it extremely difficult. He watched Sophie instead, as her eyes widened and her brows rose far above her hairline. 

“What happened?” Keefe dared to ask, only to be hit by the Foster frenzy Sophie was going through.

“Oh, shit! I am so sorry, Keefe, I can’t do our session today. Fitz and I have a date at four that I can’t cancel. I don’t even have time to get ready!”

Keefe wilted visibly at his ex best friend’s name. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at his watch: three thirty-six. 

“It’s fine.” At his tutee’s agitated expression, he said, “It’s fine, Foster. Really. I don’t mind.” But in his head, he thought fiercely, oh, but I do mind. I mind very much.

That very thought evaporated when Sophie shot him a grateful smile, leaving his brain blank and useless for anything other than gawking at her. “Thank you so much,” she said in one breath. “I’ll drop you off on the way, alright?” Leaving no room for an argument, she dropped her bag at the bottom of the staircase and dashed up to her room.

Silence. The ginormous gold clock hanging on the living room wall ticked mercilessly. Keefe pinned his eyes to the minute hand and watched it make its way around the circular surface.

3:37

3:38

3:39

Once that got boring, Keefe began to explore the house. It was extremely quiet, of course; Grady was probably at work, and maybe Edaline was out running errands. But even with no one present, he could still imagine the joyful memories made here: baking in the kitchen, games in the main room, happy meals in the dining area. Upon the sight of that glass table, Keefe was brought back to the time when Sophie invited him to dinner. It was ridiculously awkward, of course, but that didn’t mean he hated it entirely. In fact, it was probably his first time in ages having home-cooked food with other people; he and his father usually got takeout and ate in their separate chambers.

At this point, Keefe was near the stairs, admiring himself in the mirror hanging off one of the walls, flexing his injured elbow. And at this precise moment, Sophie chose to emerge from her bedroom. 

The soft taps of her converse jolted him out of his narcissistic trance, causing him to look up. Once he set his eyes on her, he couldn’t bring himself to look away. 

Unlike Biana, Sophie wasn’t much for sparkles and extravaganza, yet somehow she managed to make everything look good. Keefe ran his eyes over the simple white crop top, her denim shorts, and the pink and blue flannel she’d thrown on over it as she descended like a regal queen. Her hair was down as usual, like a graceful waterfall, but she’d braided it in a half-up half-down hairdo. She was gorgeous, she was stunning, she was beautiful, and Keefe couldn’t help but stare.

Sophie looked at him through her lashes. “Keefe? Keefe! C’mon, let’s g–”

It all played out in slow motion. On the second to last step of the stairs, Sophie yelped, tripping over her own feet, arms pinwheeling in an attempt to regain balance. As she fell backward, Keefe grabbed her hand and planted his on her back, promptly preventing her from splitting her head open on the steps. 

Ohmygodohmygodohmygod, Keefe thought in a blur of thrill and shock. Because in this position, with Sophie in his arms, her lips were closer than they ever had been before. In the next few seconds, their choppy breaths synchronized with one another like a harmony to a melody. For some reason, Keefe seemed to feel everything but nothing at once. It was a curious emotion, one he’d never felt prior to Sophie’s appearance in his life, but it resurfaced every time he was within a six-feet radius of her. He was one-hundred percent sure Sophie could hear the wild, hysteric beat of his heart.

She was a mess of gorgeous chaos, he could see it clearer than anything in her eyes. He looked at her fondly, savoring the moment before it ended; Keefe knew it was only for a few seconds, but to him it lasted an eternity

She has a boyfriend, an unelpful voice sang in his head. Clearing his throat, Keefe pulled her to a standing position.

“That was quite the fall, Foster,” he said to break the tense silence. A bright red color crept onto Sophie’s cheeks. “You really know how to make a dramatic entrance, don’t you?”

“I didn’t fall,” she muttered defiantly as they walked to the door, still flustered. “I just— attacked the floor.”

Keefe lifted one eyebrow. “Backwards?”

“I’m freaking talented, okay?” 

“Whatever you say, Foster,” Keefe said, grinning like a maniac. A minute passed before Sophie glanced over again and said,

“Quit smirking at me!” 

“I’m not smirking.”

“Well stop laughing at me, I’m serious!”

“I’m not laughing!” Sophie crossed her arms, frowning. Keefe could sense the irritation building up inside of her and couldn’t resist feeling somewhat proud that he was able to get a rise out of her so quickly.

“Then quit whatever it is you’re doing.”

“This is just me with a cheery disposition, a ray of sunshine in the mist of bleakness! Don’t put a cloud over my sunshine– OW!” 

Sophie was the one smirking now, her arm still outstretched from flinging her purse at his head (with a surprising amount of force that Keefe hadn’t anticipated). In her eyes was an evil glint, the one he’d seen when Ms. Clarette had forced Sophie to apologize for smacking him with that book of hers.

When she brushed her hair out of her face and strided towards her car, he swore he spotted a hint of a genuine smile on her face. Out of the blue, he wondered what ran through her head when someone said his name. Did her stomach flutter nervously like his did? Did she feel giddy too?

Of course she didn’t. She had Fitz to think about, didn’t she? She already had someone to fawn over. 

But he just couldn’t stay mad, seeing her cute pout while she struggled to open the car door before realizing she hadn’t unlocked it yet. Keefe snickered, stopping abruptly when Sophie shot him a glare that could kill.  “Just get in the fucking car, Sencen,” she said exasperatedly. Trying his best to forget his crush was going on a date with his ex best friend, Keefe gave her a mock salute.

“Aye aye, Captain.”

[you-have-been-frizzled]

heyy- I'm curious abt which headcanons do you have abt what would happen if Juline got hurt very badly / died and how would the rest of characters react. (sorry if it sounds dark D:)

*deep inhale* oh anon i don’t think you realized what you just signed up for. also NOTHING is too dark for me when it comes to fic ideas

i have spent years thinking about what would happen if Juline was taken prisoner by the Neverseen, and when i remembered that the collective had that mind wipe poison i just made it angster.

Kesler would shut down when she was captured going completely on autopilot because that way he didn’t have to think to feel to process what had happened

that the person who was apart of his life since he was teen, his best friend was gone he would have a planting for her because that’s what he was told to do, he just told himself that she was dead because if he didn’t all he would think about is the ways they where torturing her.

that didn’t change the fact that he kept expecting to wake up and find Juline laying beside him, and he could hold her and know that she was safe but she was never there,

Dex would stay up day after day refusing to believe that she was gone, insisting that he could find her. he would stay so long that he would start to hallucinate.

because if he stopped working for even a moment his mind would run wild, thinking of every possible way the Neverseen was hurting her. and he couldn’t take it,

Lovise would have to force him to go bed and even Tinker would send him home when they where searching for her and he was falling asleep at his desk. Tinker eventually just made him a spot in the corner of her workspace so she could put him there to sleep when he would black out.

he wouldn’t be focusing at school or at team valiant meetings, he would be angry and sassing everyone if they tried to speak to him. he blamed himself for what happened to his mom weather he was there or not

and more importantly that was his mom, and weather they where fighting or not, and he didn’t know how to live without her

and the triplets Lex wouldn’t fully understand she was gone, he would be checking at the widows, mistaking Edaline for Juline everytime she comes over before becoming crushed and looking out the window for Juline again,

Dex came back why wouldn’t she?

Bex doesn’t speak she barely makes a noise and just follows Dex around like a shadow, “helping” him with his search for their mom,

Rex wouldn’t leave his dad side because what if he goes missing too, what if he losing another parent,

they had already lost their brother once and got him back and now they lost their mom, and they don’t know if she’s going to come back

Edaline would lock herself away at first crying so hard she couldn’t breathe, or completely catatonic, she wouldn’t want to speak to anyone other than Grady because her little sister is gone,

she’s lost her daughter, almost lost her second daughter and now lost her sister,

one of the days Dex comes over with Sophie rambling in techospeak, about how he’s going to find Juline, Edaline comes downstairs to watch them work not wanting to be in bed any longer

Dex when he sees her and freezes for a moment, almost like he thinks that Edaline is his mom just for a moment,

she runs over and hugs him and they are both crying and Edaline decides right then and there that they she’s going to go over to Rimeshire and be with her sister’s kids

because that’s what Juline would have wanted, Edaline helps run slurps and burps as often as she can, so Kesler doesn’t have to deal with the cruel whispers 

Grady would be angry, at everything, not understanding why his family can’t catch a break? why must they lose everything? why are they not allowed to be happy?

he goes over to Rimeshire to be with Kesler, not wanting him to suffer alone, he lets Dex yell about the Neverseen and how they can’t leave their family alone, he makes sure the triplets are ok while their father is on autopilot.

he would be the one to go with Sophie to check on the councils search and the black swans, because he’s been through it before twice, and he’s going to be the strong one and he’s not going to cry