#keefex | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

synonymroll648 · 10 months

Text

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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squishmallow36 · 4 months

Text

It's Getting Dicey

Summary: It's the secret santa fic...Happy New Year @ultralazycreatorfan! I know I told @song-tam that it'd be here on the 30th and then that didn't happen and then I said it'd be here on the 31st and then I was struck down by a headache. Hooray. Anyway. Dex, Lovise, Sophie, and Keefe get together to play some bunco. "What's bunco?" you ask. A game that involves rolling dice. And swearing at dice. A lot of swearing at dice. Xe/xem Dex, it/its Keefe, he/him Sophie. You know how it is. Enjoy!

Word Count: 4398

TW: swearing, at least two (2) lewd jokes

Taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed!): @stellar-lune @faggot-friday @kamikothe1and0nly @nyxpixels @florida-preposterously @poppinspop @uni-seahorse-572 @solreefs @i-loved-while-i-lied @rusted-phone-calls @when-wax-wings-melt @good-old-fashioned-lover-boy7 @dexter-dizzknees @abubble125 @hi-imgrapes @callum-hunt-is-bisexual @xanadaus @callas-pancake-tree @hi-my-name-is-awesome @katniss-elizabeth-chase @arson-anarchy-death @dizzeners @thefoxysnake @olivedumdum @loveution

On Ao3 or below the cut!

It’s always a fun day when Dex finds xemself a new project. It’s an even more fun day when xe decides to rope other people into that project without telling them what they’re getting roped into.

Lovise is currently living in fear of what Dex has found this time. Xe’s not maniacally supervillain laughing quite yet, so that’s a good sign, though it’s certainly not removed from the realm of possibilities.

All xe’s done is drag Sophie and Keefe, presumably kicking and screaming, to Rimeshire. These three definitely can’t cause massive amounts of chaos. To be fair, with a Sophie comes a Sandor, so it can’t be all bad, but it’s still quite unsafe. Ro’s still off somewhere chasing down Cad, so she’s, thankfully, not a concern either.

“Hello, everyone. I thank you all for meeting with me on this fine evening against your better judgements—,” Dex begins.

Keefe interrupts, “That’s an understatement,” a smirk playing on its lips.

Dex gives it a look, a hard edge creeping into xor voice. “--The reason we are gathered here today is because I was recently informed about a human game by the name of bunco. I was also told that I would need to gather multiple willing victims in order to play. I think Sophie was simply trying to avoid me, but here we are anyway, so if you would please explain to us the rules.”

“I should just jump out your window,” Sophie grumbles.

“With or without teleporting before hitting the ground?” asks Keefe.

Sophie considers its question for a moment. “I haven’t decided yet. I guess we’ll see if I go splat.”

Lovise flinches as Sandor pinches the bridge of his nose. “Today’s objective is that we’re trying to avoid an Elwin call.”

“He’ll be so splat, there won’t be any need,” Keefe says, flipping its hair out of its eyes.

That really does not improve the situation by any meaningful metric.

Dex glances back and forth in the silence between Sophie and Keefe several times before asking, “The rules, please?”

Sophie leans forward and clasps his hands together. “Well, we aren't going to get very far unless you have six sided dice.”

Xe leans back, and without even looking, pulls out a clear box of more dice than xe should be trusted to have. And cards. And twenty-sided dice. And flat circles that probably have some purpose. Where xe got all this, Lovise doesn’t know. She doesn’t ask.

“How many do we need?” Dex asks, the dice clinking around in the hard plastic shell as xe digs them out of their prison.

“If we want to be nice and share, then three. If not, then we’re gonna need three per person.”

“Keep your grubby little hands off my fucking dice. Give me some d20s, baby.”

Dex blushes to xor ears as he hands out dice to everybody. Keefe pouts when it’s given d6s instead of the d20s like it wanted.

Sophie leans back to look at Sandor. “Are you sure you don’t wanna play?”

Lovise then takes that opportunity to make the very bad life choice of kneeling down to join their little circle. What’s the worst that can happen? They throw dice at me? I think that’s gonna happen either way.

Two matching dice and one mismatched die, all in shades of green, roll their way towards her and settle just shy of being in her lap. A slight twinge of disappointment flickers in her chest that she doesn’t get Dex’s gold-plated plastic one, but that’s probably lost under xor bed or something.

Sophie stares at Sandor for another long second before jumping into an explanation of how to play. “Bunco has six rounds—round one you’re rolling for ones, round two you’re rolling for twos, so on and so forth. So, uh, Dex, if you would roll your dice for us, please.”

Dex rolls xor metallic red Clan Sea Fox dice from xor adventures playing Battletech to get a 1, 3, and a 4.

“Very nice. I guess we should probably nominate a scorekeeper—”

Sophie is interrupted by the crashing sounds of Dex rummaging through the shit in xor room. Xe claims there’s a system. There’s no system. Miraculously, xe finds both a piece of paper that’s only used on one side and looks like it’s only been through a few avalanches, as well as a pen whose ink is almost guaranteed to be drier than ogre skin.

These get shuffled into Lovise’s responsibility because she seems “trustworthy.” Considering she’s thrown more games of Catan than one would think in order to make sure Dex doesn’t pout, that’s probably not ideal for integrity’s sake.

“So this is round one, so just kind of make a table tracking our point values with tally marks or some similar system if you guys don’t have that. The column headers can just be our initials or something. Be lazy. Just give Dex one point for that one xe rolled.” Sophie turns back to Dex. “You may roll again. And, yes, that does mean all the dice. We’re not playing Yahtzee, Keefe.”

Dex rolls again. 3,5,5.

“Because you didn’t get a one, the turn moves to the next victim. Do we wanna go clockwise or counterclockwise? Or are analog clocks not something that exist around here?”

Before this devolves into a shouting match, Lovise suggests, “You go next so then I’ll go last.”

Sophie picks up his dice and begins shaking them. “In case I forget to mention it, three of any number that isn’t the round number—say I roll 3 fours right now—that’s worth five points. Rolling three of the target number is 21 points and is called a bunco. And we’re going to keep rolling until someone hits 21 points, and then we go to the next round rolling for twos, et cetera.”

He lets the marbled, matching blue dice go. 2,5,6.

“Damn it. You gave me the cursed dice, didn’t you? Whatever. Keefe, it’s your turn.”

“You better have given me the good dice.” Its dice don’t match by any means—one black and blue, one marbled brown, and one beige—but they’re all stolen from Munchkin, made obvious by the helmet representing the number one. 1,4,5.

“Lovise, please mark down a point and Keefe, you go again.”

1,2,4.

“One more point. Roll again.”

“Again? Exile.” 2,2,3.

“Holy fuck, I just thought you got five points. Don’t do that again. Lovise, it’s your turn whenever you’re ready.”

The unfamiliar plastic dice are awkwardly light in her palm as she rolls. 1,2,4. “Can someone count how many I’m going to have to add so I don’t have to keep pausing?”

Dex nods and puts a finger up—thankfully not that finger—as Lovise scoops the dice up again.

1,1,2.

Sophie leans forward, his head in his hands. “If you had just gotten a bunco, I would have jumped out the window.”

“Is that worth one point per one rolled, or some other weird stacking rule like rolling three?”

“It’s one point per one rolled. So in total, she’s gotten three points this turn. One-seventh of the way to the end.”

“One-seventh of the way to one-sixth of the way to the end,” Keefe corrects.

“I’ll do my best,” Lovise says as she scoops the dice up again, only to roll a 3,5, and 6. She marks down her three points. “To be fair, I did try.”

“That you did. Just not enough,” Dex says. Xe rolls a 1,1, and 2, prompting another Sophie-stroke. On the reroll, xe gets a 1,6,6. On the next reroll, xe gets a 3,5,6. Lovise writes all this down, bringing xor total up to 4.

Sophie’s turn again. 2,2,5. “This shit is so fucking rigged.”

“No, that’s just how probabilities work sometimes,” Dex says as Keefe rolls. 1,4,6.

Sophie counts on his fingers as Keefe’s streak continues with a 1,5,5.

1,1,5.

2,2,4 and it all comes crashing down. Those four points bring its total up to six.

The turn comes back to Lovise, who rolls a 2,4,5, leaving as quickly as it arrived.

Dex seizes the opportunity to get a 1,4,5, followed closely by a 4,5,5. Sophie is blessed with a gorgeously useless 3,4,4, paralleled by Keefe’s 2,5,6.

Lovise follows that up with a 1,2,6, forgetting to ask someone to count and instead pausing to write it down on the scorecard. The next roll is a 1,4,5, which doesn’t get written down, and then 3,3,4, which has no reason to be marked. This brings her up to tie with Dex, though the both of them are still trailing behind Keefe.

Dex fumbles this opportunity to take the lead with a 2,5,6.

Sophie, on the other hand, is sulking something fierce when the turn comes back to him, convinced the ones on the dice are never going to appear. It turns out, with a roll of 1,1,5, they do, in fact, have ones on them, and those are his first two points on the board. They’re also his only two points on the board as his next roll is a 3,5,6.

Keefe and Lovise get a grand total of zero points during their turns with a 2,3,4 and a 3,4,6, respectively.

They do, however, learn that having a straight of numbers like Keefe’s does not count for any points. This is bullshit and should be amended to make this a more enjoyable experience for everyone involved.

And that’s when Dex decides to show off. Xor first roll is 1,3,4. Standard. Normal. Trustworthy. The next is 1,3,5. Like. Okay. You’re being a little extra there but go off I guess. And then the third roll. 1,3,6.

Stringing together three points in three separate rolls is a little absurd, which is why it gets nuked by a 3,3,5 moments later. This one turn didn’t net that many points in the grand scheme of things, but it does bring xem ahead to eight. More than a third of the way to the end goal.

The ones fall off the dice for an entire cycle, rotating around the entire group until Sophie’s next turn before any more points make their way onto the board. He does get a 1,1,4 so it’s not nothing, but the excitement quickly fades as the reroll of 2,3,6 materializes.

This brings him to four, narrowing the gap between first and last place without changing any placements.

The ones don’t appear again until his next turn, revealing themselves with a roll of 1,2,4. The reroll is a 5,5,6.

“Damn it. I really thought that was gave me five points.”

Keefe tilts its head. “I guess you just can’t count.”

“You’re right. Dex, do you have any integer dice?”

“No changing dice in the middle of the game. What happened to last time when you cried for the blue ones?”

“You’ve cursed the blue ones since the last time we played Munchkin!”

“Or maybe I just wanted to make sure that you could successfully run away instead of getting violated by a tongue demon next time!”

“That’s just because you transed my gender and the fucking tongue demon got rid of my cheese grater of peace!”

Munchkin is an…interesting game, Lovise will give it that.

“I was just being accurate to the real world!” Dex argues.

“The real world hadn’t figured that out yet! You just wanted the -5 modifier during my next combat phase.”

“Maybe I have a new ability that’s predicting the future. Did you ever think about that, Mr. I-have-five-abilities?”

Sophie looks at Keefe, who shrugs. “I can’t tell what people’s abilities are, dude. After they’ve manifested, fucking forget it.”

“Oh, please. Like you two haven’t had your hands all over each other since we were staying at Alluveterre.”

“Yeah, but my ability’s on the newer side, so there’s not a whole lot I can do. Now, can it be my fucking turn, please? I need to show all of you how you roll dice.”

Sophie huffs. “Sure, whatever.”

Keefe gives him a bright false smile as it rolls. 1,6,6. “Lovise, if you would mark that down, I’d appreciate it greatly.”

She had already written it down and is waiting for it to roll again. 1,3,3.

Keefe’s confidence hits the rafters as it scoops up the dice again, only to have it come fluttering down in tatters with a 3,5,6. It’s currently tied with Dex for first place.

It passes the turn to Lovise with a not-insignificant amount of grumbling. She gets a point with a roll of 1,3,4, but doesn’t have the necessary luck to get a string of rolls as her turn dies with a reroll of 2,2,4.

She’s up to six points, and at this rate, the gnomes are going to get Ravagog back before the first round is over.

Dex doesn’t choose to help this problem with xor roll of 3,5,5. It was so close to being promising.

Sophie and Keefe each pick up a point on their next turns. Keefe’s currently working on getting three dice to show the same face and it isn’t working quite yet, with two doubles in a row. (The first roll was a 1,3,3 and the second was 4,5,5.)

It’s a whole cycle through their turns—Lovise 2,3,4; Dex 2,4,5; Sophie 3,3,6; Keefe 3,5,6—before Keefe officially declares, “The ones have fallen off the dice.”

Lovise proves that to be not quite accurate by finding a 1,4,4 somewhere in there. Then, just to make sure, she finds a 1,1,3. That’s the last of the ones on her dice for now, however, ending her turn with a 3,4,6.

That brings her up to 9 points and into the lead, though not by much.

Dex rolls a gorgeous, worthless 2,3,4 on xor next turn, and Sophie follows that up with an equally beautiful 3,5,6.

Keefe can’t let this stand any longer with a turn composed of rolls of 1,3,6; 1,5,6; and 2,6,6. Its total comes to 11 and they’re nearing the halfway point. Though, dice will be thrown if Keefe wins, so trying to lengthen the game any way possible is advantageous.

That’s Lovise strategy as she rolls a nice, normal 1,4,4 and scratches it onto the scoreboard. She picks the dice back up to get a 4,5,6.

Straights really should count for points, but when you’re playing with a bunch of gays, they don’t. Also that’s what Sophie says the rules are, but that’s the better reason.

This turn brings her to a total of ten points. A nice, round number.

Dex, on the other hand, has other plans. Xor starts off by rolling a 1,4,6. As one does. Xe continues by rolling a 1,3,5. As one also does.

And that’s when shit gets tense. Xe rolls again, but doesn’t get a one. Xe does, however, get a 2,2,2.

Five points.

Keefe’s bloodthirst is gleaming in its eyes as Dex picks up the dice again. Thankfully, Lovise doesn’t have to hold it back as xe rolls a 2,3,5, killing xor streak.

That doesn’t reverse the past. The damage is done. Xe’s at fifteen points after pulling off that move.

“Always keep in mind that anyone can get a bunco at any time. Three ones and this is all over.” Sophie then takes his own advice and tries his best to make that happen. He’s actually fairly close with a 1,1,6 and an aneurysm from Keefe. His second attempt, a 3,5,6, is notably less successful but still brings him to eight points.

Keefe is not successful in its own 4,6,6 attempt. The grumbles that the dice are cursed have begun once again in greater force this time.

Lovise and Dex both pick up a point on their next turns and then the ones fall off the dice for two entire cycles. As in, it goes through Sophie, Keefe, Lovise, Dex, Sophie, Keefe, Lovise, and Dex before another point is on the board.

Where do the ones go? Nobody knows. They’re definitely still on the dice—Keefe checked. Loudly. They just don’t appear. For eight rolls in a row.

Sophie interrupts this spiraling trend with a 1,2,3 like a light in the darkness. Then, he gets a 1,3,6 with significantly less symbolic meaning behind it. He follows this up with a 2,3,5 that makes the veil of inky blackness fall over them once again. He’s up to ten points, so he’s still in last place, but less firmly so than before this last turn.

It’s Sophie’s next turn before the dice bless the group with a holy one in a roll of 1,3,6. It’s strangely fitting how the forgotten middle child of his previous round is now the roll that slows the encroaching emptiness.

Its luminescence is snuffed out almost as soon as it began like a candle on a windy night with a 2,4,5.

“Come on, you worthless sons of bitches,” Keefe mutters as it shakes the dice. 1,3,4. “Ooh, swearing at the dice is the answer? You should’ve told me this earlier. You pieces of shit better give me a one.” 1,3,4.

“To be fair, I’m kind of surprised it took you this long to figure out that secret,” Dex says.

Keefe ignores xem. “Please, motherfuckers.” 2,4,5.

Unfortunately, Lovise doesn’t get to learn new swear words from Keefe’s newfound Polyglot ability with the end of that streak that took it to thirteen points.

It’s said that some humans find thirteen to be an unlucky number. It’ll be interesting to see if the dice agree with this superstition by grinding Keefe’s point gains to a halt.

Lovise rolls on her next turn—2,2,4. It’s getting real fucking old rolling and rolling and having nothing new to show for it.

Dex’s turn is filled with as much excitement as Lovise’s just was. Which is to say, none. Xe rolls a 4,6,6. Lovise thought xe got three 6s, but no. If xe had, the round would be over and Dex would be inventing a new victory dance.

Sophie, however, doesn’t let that stop him. 1,6,6. 1,4,6. 1,2,6. The dice seem rigged—almost like he isn’t even rolling them, but different ones are ending up as the ones and sixes. The only reason Lovise even bothered to notice was that she doesn’t trust any of her company that much.

Then Sophie decides to roll a 2,6,6, proving that all of this was meaningless speculation. But he is up to thirteen—tied with Keefe—so that’s nice for everyone except for Lovise in last place.

It takes a whole cycle of grumbling, swearing at dice, and definitely not purposely rolling them at others before Keefe gets another point. Actually, two points. 1,1,4. It ends up only being those two points, as its next roll is 2,3,3 and a couple of tears that it wasn’t worth five points. That brings it up to fifteen, gnawing at the back of Dex’s heels for the honor of being in the lead.

The dice giveth and they taketh away.

They taketh away Lovise’s, Dex’s, Sophie’s, and Keefe’s next attempt to get points.

“Bless me with your golden glory,” Lovise whispers, eyes skyward as she shakes the dice. 1,2,6.

She scratches her twelfth point into the paper before returning to the translucent cubes taunting her. She rolls again. 2,4,6.

Then it’s Dex’s turn once more—3,4,5. A roll that has absolutely nothing.

Then it’s Sophie’s turn once more—3,3,6. If only four threes would count for something. Saw the dice apart. Do whatever it takes.

Then it’s Keefe’s turn once more—2,4,4. It’s a sharpie away from drawing extra dots. If every side has six dots, every roll is five points.

Then it’s Lovise’s turn once more—4,5,6. Straights still don’t count for points. With the way this game is going, it seems like the gays don’t either.

When the turn returns to Dex, expectations are on the floor. Then xe rolls a 1,5,6. That’s xor seventeenth point. Four more and this is over. Four more and two becomes the magic number.

Xe rolls again.

2,2,2.

Lovise’s breath catches in her throat. Five points. Bringing Dex to 22 and the round to proceed forward.

It’s almost poetic how the first round ends with the next magic number, come to bestow them with its splendor before it disappears from the dice forever.

Sophie, a smirk playing on his lips, taps on his Imparter in what looks like a very controlled fashion until an ear-splitting bell noise echoes through Dex’s room.

The only reason Dex merely flinches away and doesn’t banish him immediately from the premises for all eternity is presumably because rolling dice game fun when you win.

“My family’s bunco game has a bell that comes with it. That’s the closest I can do. Technically, I think the rules say you’re supposed to ring it only when you get a bunco. But we used to ring it at every available opportunity.” He turns to Keefe. “Which is why it’s as far from you as I can possibly get.”

Keefe pouts overdramatically, a feat considering it was already doing that at Dex’s accomplishment.

But Dex’s accomplishment means nothing. There’s five more rounds before Dex starts arguing that they should play the extended edition with the d100s xe inevitably has stored somewhere.

The following rounds feel as though they race by.

The twos round, Dex wins once more by rolling a triplet of 2s, except this time it’s worth a full 21 points. Keefe made it to 20 before Dex pulled that one out of xor ass, which is highly suspicious, so a dice trade is initiated. A diagonal cross results in Lovise getting Sophie’s blue dice and vice versa with Lovise’s green ones.

The threes round, against all odds, Dex wins again. If xe isn’t cheating, that’s one Exile of an accomplishment, and if xe is, xe’s not doing a very good job at hiding it. Dice are traded again, and Lovise ends up with Dex’s metal Battletech ones.

The antepenultimate fours round, Dex takes it upon xemself to win again. Xe has the audacity to get a triplet of 1s and 3s in the same roll streak. The fact that xe hasn’t been burned at the stake like the witch xe is is a fucking miracle.

Lovise having to fight off a feral Sophie and Keefe is not a fight that’s going to be pleasant. Don’t get her wrong, she’d still win, but she might get a couple of bite marks.

They switch the dice again, and Lovise ends up with her original green dice, traitorous in their assistance of Sophie and Keefe over the past two rounds but magnificent in their return.

The penultimate fives round, Keefe finally gets to stop the waterfall of crocodile tears and replace them with actual tears as the dice finally decree that it’s worthy of winning. Dex has already won the game beyond defeat but it’s not about winning anymore. It’s about not losing and second place is still better than last place.

Now, to be fair, second place is the first place of losers, so maybe it’s just trying to say that it’s the top loser in the world. That would make a lot of sense.

Dex is also, notably, allowed to keep xor dice. All of the useful rolls were used up and xor seven points at the end of the round didn’t seem like enough of a threat.

And it is finally time for the grand finale. The ultimate challenge of dice throwing. The sixes round.

Lovise gets so, so close to winning. She has twenty whole fucking points. Yes, all of the points are fucking.

And then Sophie just decides, “oh, yeah, I’ll get a bunco. No big deal” as the dice settle into a 6,6,6.

It is, in fact, a big deal.

Sandor will be hearing about this moment for all eternity. Lovise will make him suffer. He deserves it for his charge’s utter impunity.

It may or may not have been Lovise’s mostly-unintentional death glare that caused Sophie and Keefe to fabricate reasons to not be at Rimeshire anymore as they light leap away.

Dex begins stuffing the dice back into the box, clinking as they slide down unwillingly, forming a lopsided hot mess.

As soon as she’s certain Sophie and Keefe have vacated the premises, Lovise turns to xem and asks “How’d you cheat?”

Xor hands fly up, framing xor face with xor palms out. “To be completely fair, I only cheated in the second round.”

“I didn’t ask ‘did you cheat?’ I asked ‘how did you cheat?’”

Dex digs out the Battletech dice xe was using in the first two rounds and rolls them around in xor hand. “It’s really easy to load metal dice, especially when you’ve got magnets to turn it off when someone wants to check if they’re loaded. I haven’t figured out how to load high numbers with it yet. And, besides, I forgot to do it in the first round and it only shifts the probabilities a little bit. It’s not cheating that much.”

“Yes it is.” Lovise pauses for dramatic effect. “Next time, if you have loaded dice, I expect some too.”

Dex throws xor head back, laughing. “I’ll make sure to get around to that as soon as possible, but first: I gotta go get some snackies from downstairs.”

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