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sillysistersusi · 2 months

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Someone To Feel Safe With

Authors note: My first work for Kotlc!!!! Just recently started this series so I am really sorry if something in here doesn't make any sense😅 I wanted to read these books for a long time and now I finally started them and they are even better than I expected!

Summary: When Keefe fails a surprise test, he is afraid to return home to his adoptive father Elwin.

Keefe's legs trembled as he slumped to the floor in front of his locker. Everything seemed too bright all of a sudden, and the light burned in his eyes, from which tears were already rolling down his cheeks.

Why could he never do anything right?

They had all written a surprise test today, and Keefe hadn't actually been particularly nervous or excited about it. Unlike Sophie, who had immediately stressed herself out, causing a really cute little worry line to form between her eyes.

Normally, he wasn't necessarily bad at school. At least, he'd thought he wasn't, because ever since Elwin had adopted him and Cassius had been forbidden to see Keefe, he'd been trying really hard.

Elwin had always believed in Keefe, no matter how much mischief he got into, but Keefe was afraid. He was afraid that Elwin would now see the full extent of his uselessness and it drove Keefe insane.

Because even though he had had a good feeling about the test at first, that feeling had been wrong. Because it had been a disaster.

He hadn't even scored half the points he could have. When he had seen the sheet with his score for the first time, it had sent a cold shiver down his spine.

How was he supposed to show it to Elwin without sinking to the ground in shame? Keefe didn't think he could bear it if Elwin was disappointed in him. Cassius had always looked disappointed at him, and Keefe dreaded seeing the same expression on Elwin's face.

But he was even more afraid of how Elwin would punish him for his failure. He had only lived with Elwin for a short time and had so far managed not to do anything to upset the other elf. But he knew that it was normal to be punished for failure or bad behavior, and even if Elwin treated him with a gentleness he had never known before, he would need punish him.

Keefe rubbed tears from his eyes, but it didn't do much good as new ones kept coming. His heart twisted into a knot and he struggled for breath.

What would Elwin's punishments look like?

Perhaps he would forbid Keefe to eat? Cassius had done that all the time.

Or-

But his thoughts were interrupted by a sudden, relieved-sounding cry: "Keefe! There you are, I've been looking everywhere for you I- "

It was Elwin. At first he looked overjoyed, then his eyes wandered to the tears on Keefe's cheeks and he paused. The smile slowly turned into an expression of worry.

Keefe bit his trembling lower lip nervously and he clenched his fingers inside the fabric of his school uniform to keep them from shaking uncontrollably.

Elwin knelt on the floor in front of him. "Keefe?" he asked gently. "Darling, what's wrong?"

But Keefe shook his head. He didn't know how to tell Elwin. That was the only reason he was still in Foxfire after school ended.

When Elwin touched him gently on the shoulder, presumably just to comfort him, Keefe flinched so hard that Elwin jerked his hand back and his eyes darted to the side.

Then Keefe saw Elwin frown, and when he followed his gaze, he realized that Elwin had found the test that had slipped from Keefe's fingers when he had fallen to the ground.

"I'm sorry," Keefe whispered softly through his tears. His voice, a little raspy from crying, carried strangely through the completely silent room.

Elwin frowned even more. "What are you sorry for, Keefe?"

Keefe nodded over to the test and then closed his eyes, afraid of the disappointment on Elwin's face.

There was silence for a while and Keefe held his breath, afraid of what would follow.

Would Elwin yell? Or would he speak his threat quietly? Or would he-

Even thinking it gave Keefe very uncomfortable goosebumps.

Cassius hadn't hit him often, only when he had done something that had been terribly wrong or embarrassing in his eyes.

But would Elwin really-

Then he suddenly felt a very gentle touch on his head that made him flinch again.

Elwin stroked his hair.

"It's okay, darling," Elwin whispered, but Keefe could also sense that he was tense. But if he was angry, why didn't he just take it out on Keefe?

Maybe-

Maybe he waited until they were home. Maybe he just didn't want to take the risk that someone might notice.

"Come on." Elwin whispered softly and helped Keefe to his feet, whose body suddenly felt strangely stiff. Elwin was probably just waiting for them to be alone. "Let's go home."

Elwin took the test in one hand and reached with the other for one of Keefe's trembling hands and gently stroked his knuckles. Keefe's whole hand began to tingle. It was a nice feeling, Keefe couldn't remember anyone ever doing that to him. At least not in this way.

Slowly, they walked through the corridors of Foxfire, Keefe's hand still firmly in Elwin's.

He was so spaced out that he only regained consciousness when they stood in front of the door to their home.

Keefe felt his stomach tighten. If they walked through that door, Elwin would drop his façade. He swallowed and realized his knees were weak again, but he held himself up.

If they went through that door, then the gentle words and reassuring touches would end.

"Keefe?"

He couldn't go through that door.

"Keefe?"

What if Elwin threw him out? Not only would he not be sure what to do, but even worse, Elwin was important to him and he didn't want to lose him. Especially not just because he was to stupid to get good grades.

"Oh Keefe, whatever's going on, why won't you talk to me? I could help, Darling." Elwin's voice slowly drifted over to Keefe, but it sounded distant.

Elwin put a hand on his shoulder. The warmth from his body helped Keefe to slowly cling back to reality. Then Elwin said, and this time Keefe heard him loud and clear: "You're not afraid of my reaction, are you?"

When Keefe didn't answer, he sighed sadly.

"That's what I thought. But you don't need to be, really." Elwin explained, which unfortunately did little to calm Keefe down.

As they stepped over the threshold, Keefe held his breath, as if he could delay the inevitable.

He simply stood in the doorway and waited.

He didn't want to leave. As soon as he stepped through the door, that familiar smell surrounded him. Elwin's smell, which already smelled like home to him.

Keefe loved living here. He loved dinner, where Elwin would tell funny stories or invite one of Keefe's friends, usually Sophie. It had never been like dinner with his parents, where they had either been silent, had made fun of someone or talking about what a disappointment Keefe had been. Dinner was always a very tense occasion, but now it was something Keefe was looking forward to, but he had ruined it. Like he ruined everything.

He only realized he had started crying again when he felt a wet tickle on his chin.

"Kiddo?" Elwin asked gently. Why was he so nice? They were alone now, Elwing could now scream at him. Why was he talking to Keefe like he was a frightend animal?

"I- I don't understand." Keefe whispered softly, trying to look anywhere but into Elwin's eyes.

Elwin took a step closer. "What don't you understand, darling?"

"Why aren't you yelling at me?" Keefe asked, hating the way his voice broke at the end of the sentence and fighting the urge to run away.

Then he said even more quietly, "Why aren't you hurting me?"

Keefe didn't know where those words had come from, he felt as if someone else had spoken them.

"I would never- "Elwin sounded desperate, "Keefe, my boy, look at me."

And Keefe did as he had said. His father had always hated it when Keefe didn't obey him immediately, and he didn't want to risk making Elwin even angrier.

But he didn't see anger in Elwin's eyes. No, he saw kindness and concern and... love. At least he thought he did, because the look in Elwin's eyes brought more tears to his eyes.

"Kiddo, you don't need to be afraid of anything like that with me. I would never yell at you or take my anger out on you, because thats wrong. You don't deserve that." Elwin smiled gently and Keefe suddenly felt a little less afraid. "You're a wonderful boy and I know you're trying." Elwin nodded over to the test he had placed on a dresser in the corner. "These things happen. We're all just elves. No one is perfect and I don't expect you to be."

"Oh." Keefe murmured and sniffled softly.

Elwin slowly reached out a hand, and this time Keefe didn't flinch. "Do you want a hug?" Elwin asked gently and Keefe swallowed as he felt new tears. However, these tears had a different reason. He nodded.

Elwin slowly wrapped his arms around him and Keefe didn't think he had ever felt so warm. He buried his face in Elwin's chest, who began stroking his hair again.

"It's all good. I promise." Elwin whispered softly. "I don't want to be someone you fear, but someone you can trust and go to if you need help. So don't be afraid, kiddo."

Keefe nodded slowly, allowing more tears to escape his eyes as he let himself sink into Elwin's arms, relinquishing control completely for the first time in his life.

For he could feel Elwin's emotions now that the storm in his own head was calmed, and he could feel nothing but sincerity and love. And these were feelings that Keefe's parents had never felt towards him.

Keefe would have liked to tell Elwin that he loved him too, but he didn't know if he could, so he just hugged Elwin tighter. He was sure he understood anyway.

#kotlc #kotlc keefe #kotlc fandom #kotlc sophie #koftlc fanfic #dadwin #kotlc elwin #elwin #keefe sencen #sophie foster #elwin adopts keefe #fanfic #cross posted on ao3 #keeper of the lost cities

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synonymroll648 · 10 months

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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.

#qpr keefex fic #but it's the real thing this time!#qpr keefex #keefex #keefe sencen #dex dizznee #kotlc #kotlc fic #keefex fic #keeper of the lost cities #keefex week 2023 #autistic!dex #bisexual!keefe #aroace!dex #keefe feels alterous attraction towards dex in this btw. if i didn't make it obvious enough (sorry if i didn't)#dadwin #forever in mourning of how keefe isn't gonna get adopted by elwin :( ik grady and keefe is good but. KEEFE AND ELWIN [sobs]

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