quick platonic keefitz drabble
It starts in Elementalism.
Keefe had never been good at capturing the elements, preferring to instead let the tornado run rampant throughout the room and see where it took them. But he thought that Sir Conley might actually flunk him if he didn’t start putting in some effort, so he begrudgingly set off after the wind gust, bottle in hand.
What he had not accounted for was to be knocked embarrassingly off his feet and flung across the room, bumping his back against a stiff shoulder. Fitz’s shoulder.
Things had been tense between them for a while after Sophie had delicately jumped ship from his matchmaking obsession and resigned herself as single for roughly two seconds before she and Keefe had kissed in The Grove. To make matters worse, he and Fitz had barely spoken since the whole incident, leaving them at an awkward stalemate.
He would have been glad to straighten himself out and call it a day if it weren’t for the strong wave of sticky lovesickness rolling off of his former best friend's shoulder. And Keefe has never been known for his tact.
“Woah, dude,” he started, fanning the air between them theatrically. “Your pining might actually make me fall over.”
Fitz quickly shoved him away and stuffed something in his pocket, a note of some sort, before shooting back, “Nah, you do a good enough job of that by yourself.”
Grateful for the banter, Keefe laughed and snatched his wrist, squinting his eyes. “Yeah, okay. Sure. Try to cover it up all you want, but I know what I felt, Vacker.”
He hadn’t realized how much he had missed laughing with Fitz until this moment. It felt like things had been strained ever since Sophie ran through their lives like a windstorm, and Keefe didn’t know how they were ever going to repair what they’d lost. Talking to him again felt like an olive branch.
“Whatever, man. Empaths are freaky.”
To his surprise, and immense delight, he could see genuine blush rising in his friend's face, painting his cheeks rosy as he avoided Keefe’s eyes.
“Says the guy who can read people's minds! Come on, who is she? Is she in this class?” He scanned the room for familiar faces but came up short, incapable of deciphering which girl Fitz might actually be into. Was he really into blondes or was that just a phase?
The brunette ducked his head and looked away, rolling his eyes at Keefe’s antics. “No. There’s nobody, just drop it.”
But Keefe couldn’t drop it. For the following weeks, he kept an extra close eye on Fitz. His facial expressions, who he was talking to, what he was talking to them about. He couldn’t quite place it, but he felt as though there was something big he was hiding. Not just some throwaway crush, but a real emotional weight he had picked up within the last months alone.
His face seemed gaunt and hollowed, as if he’d given up eating as a concept entirely. The dark circles around his eyes indicated an ongoing insomnia and he hadn’t been laughing as much as he used to.
Keefe became prone to sneaking up on him while he would be talking to girls and grabbing him to get a read on his emotions, but he caught on pretty fast and developed the habit of looking over his shoulder at every interaction.
He cornered him one day after lunch as they were all walking to classes.
“Come on, just tell me. For the sake of my sanity. I need to know.”
“There’s nothing to tell, Keefe! I don’t know how many times I have to say this: there is no mystery girl.”
“Yes! I’ll prove it to you. Do you know how I know you’re lying?” Quicker than the lightning in their elementalism class, he snatched his wrist to feel for the telltale sign of a lie. Expecting some nervousness, a skip of a pulse, he felt through the tunic for the lovesick jitters he had read all those days ago in elementalism.
What he felt instead was heavier than he was expecting. Dark, swirling shame was beating off of his friend's skin in a dizzying wave.
Fitz wretched his arm back like he’d been burned and shoved past him, muttering, “I need to get to class.”
“Hey, wait, what’s wrong?”
Keefe stopped him in his tracks, gently holding him back by the shoulder to keep talking. He hadn’t been there for him after all of the Sophie drama, but he was determined to be there for him now.
“Look, is there really nothing I can do to convince you there isn’t some girl?” he asked.
Keefe quirked an eyebrow in amusement and Fitz’s whole body sagged, deflating under some invisible weight.
“I don’t understand,” Keefe questioned, rubbing his hand to the back of his neck. “You could get basically anyone you wanted. Why is this bothering you so much?”
Fitz looked into his eyes earnestly, teal and stiff, almost unnerving. “It’s… um. It would be a bad match.”
“Dude,” Keefe breathed out, sagging his shoulders in exasperation. “I thought you were done with that.”
The “after Sophie” goes unsaid but stands between them awkwardly before Fitz responds, dejected.
“I can’t be. Not really. There are… I mean, my family expects certain things from me. A good match is just… I mean, it’s the least of my duties, really.”
The words sound sour and awkward in his mouth and Keefe has half a mind to dismiss them but there’s something so familiar about the scene that he’s left with a dizzying sense of deja vu. This is how they even became friends in the first place, he realizes. The only two kids totally isolated in their grade, struggling to meet their families expectations and acting as their only solace to each other.
“It’s just not– it’s not even heard of, you know, for a Vacker to have a bad match. And there’s the continuation of my family line to think about, I mean, what if Biana doesn’t even want kids? I need to be prepared to continue the Vacker lineage.”
He seems panicked now, tripping over his words and picking up his pace again to start walking to class. The late bell had rung five minutes ago.
Keefe follows after him in silence until they reach his class and go their separate ways. The silence of all he should have said, but didn’t, hangs heavy over him for the rest of the week.
He lays off after that. No more surprise attacks of emotional scans, no more interrogations. But he doesn’t stop wondering about it, or worrying about whether or not Fitz was under too much pressure. He had long since lost the fantasy of being in the Vacker family ever since Alvar had run off to live in the Lost Cities and Fitz had been given the role of preparing to take his place in nobility. He had never considered the toll that simply carrying the family name had taken on him had any serious impacts, not until that day in the hallway.
He was willing to let sleeping dogs lie until he stumbled into the Level 6 locker corridor to get his leaping crystal and found Fitz standing there alone, holding some sort of vial and reading a note. His cheeks had that same rose-like flush to them and he was wearing the dopiest grin Keefe had ever seen on his face.
Before he could control himself, and before Fitz had the chance to see him, Keefe lunged forward and swiped the note out of his hands.
Repeating it out loud with a dramatic flourish, Keefe reads, “Just in case you ever wanted to clear your mind. Smiley face. From, D. Awww. Seriously, who is this?”
Fitz yanks it back, cheeks burning red. “It was just– it’s a gift. From a friend. Just lay off, okay?”
Keefe nodded knowledgeably. “Yes, of course. The gifts that friends give each other for no specific occasion with nice flirty notes. I know all about those.”
Fitz rolled his eyes and shoved past him, annoyance and embarrassment transmitting off of him in pulses as they made contact.
From, D. D. He had an initial but was no closer to this mystery infatuation before. D. D.
Needless to say, Fitz hadn’t heard the end of this “D” enigma.
“Come on, you’ve got to give me something here. The intrigue… it’s killing me…” He placed a hand dramatically to his forehead and slumped back. They were lounging in the commons after school, waiting for Dex and Sophie to get out of their last classes of the day. It was a hot day, nearing the end of the school year, and his tunic was beginning to stick to his back from the humidity.
Just then, voices came echoing down the corridor as Dex and Sophie rushed in, faces flushed from being outside for PE in the sun. Sophie's hair was frizzing around her face in the way it always did on days when it was too hot, framing her in a halo of soft golden curls. Her eyes were glinting from the sun rays and they brightened as she saw him, lounging on the soft common room chairs and smiling at her lazily. He could feel her leisure satisfaction floating across the room like smoke from a flame.
They reached the chairs and Keefe yanked her down to his level as she laughed, putting his arms around her before pausing. Would Fitz be offended by the clear act of affection dangled in front of his face?
He looked over wearily just to find that Fitz was too occupied himself to be paying him and Sophie any mind. Dex was talking to him about some kind of gadget animatedly, using his hands and speaking breathlessly to emphasize his point. And Fitz had never looked more smitten. Looking up at him like he hung the stars, his cheeks were bright and his eyes gleamed as he listened, fully engaged, to Dex’s nonsensical ramblings. He smiled shyly, like it was for himself, like it was a secret only he knew.
Keefe didn’t need to brush elbows or grab a wrist this time. He knew, without a doubt, that this was the object of Fitz’s infatuation. And the puzzle pieces fell into place from there.
D. A “bad match”. The shame rippling off of his skin. The worry about the family line. “There is no mystery girl”. Huh. He guessed there really was no mystery girl after all. He feels foolish now, having gone on some wild goose chase for some girl he would never find. The full gravity of the situation hits him then full on, square in the chest.
Fitz is in love. With a boy. The ultimate bad match. He had heard, of course, of some elves who ran off with someone of the same gender and eloped. He had seen the sneers and heard the judgements and disdain. Choosing happiness over duty in the elven world, it seemed, was the ultimate disgrace. He looks at his friend, dark hair and gleaming teal eyes and charming smile, and feels like he’s seeing him fresh for the first time entirely. He feels like he’s seeing every emotional read on him, every forced laugh, every awkward interaction with girls, for the very first time and he has never felt like he has known him more than at this very moment.
Fitz might never carry on the Vacker name. He might have never even loved Sophie or cared about all of those stupid Winnowing Galas. He might never tell anybody. He might never find anybody.
At that moment, Fitz looks back at him. Smiling lazily, he shoots a grin his way. Keefe shoots it back. For now, all is good.
They walk out of the stuffy common room and into the beating sun.
It’s another month before Fitz tells him himself. It’s a Tuesday night when Keefe shows up at his door, nothing but a tired smile and the clothes on his back. He tells him he wanted to spend quality bonding time with his good friend Fitz and leaves out mentioning the cutting edge to his fathers voice that echoed around the tower until it drove him out of the house. Fitz gives him a gentle smile and lets him in.
The Vacker mansion is cold, and ginormous, but they immediately go up to Fitz’s warm room. It’s smaller than most would guess, almost humble in a way. Knowing that there are rooms the size of craters in this house and still choosing an average one. It almost makes Keefe well up. That, or the stress of it all.
They’re lying there, trying to fall asleep, dim lighting and leaves rustling outside, breaking the stillness. It's another minute of stagnance before Keefe speaks,
“Tell me something nice.”
“What do you mean?” Fitz’s voice is groggy and his accent is thicker than during the daytime and Keefe would worry about waking him if he weren’t so melancholic.
“Y’know, like. Tell me something nice. Something spirit-raising.”
A moment goes by. Then two. Fitz sits up, shuffles for a second, lies back down. Keefe wonders if he’s not going to respond until:
“If I tell you something,” his voice is hoarse and whispering, “would you promise not to tell anyone else?”
That wakes Keefe up. He looks up at him, trying to muster all his sincerity into his face. “Yeah, man. Always.”
Another stretch goes by before quietly, gently, Fitz says. “It was Dex. The, um. The mystery girl. Was Dex.”
Keefe sits up and Fitz does too. Their knees bump together and Keefe can feel every nerve, every deep well of shame, every ounce of hopelessness oozing out from his pores.
He looks him in the eye and places his hand gently on his shoulder. He feels the pressure in his chest, the panic pumping through his veins, the despair leaking from his gut. He tries to take it all from him, in that moment, but he can’t. That’s not the way it works. So he nods wordlessly and smiles.
Fitz smiles too, heartbreakingly. Like he can’t bear to, but he has to. His eyes well up briefly and he rubs at them quickly, breathing deeply, running a hand through his hair.
“It’s going to be okay,” Keefe says, because really, what can he say? “This doesn’t change anything. Seriously. It’s going to be okay.”
Fitz nods and smiles a little more genuinely and they go to bed and wake up with the sun beaming through the window and their legs all mixed up under the sheets. Keefe wakes up feeling like a weight has been lifted. Or maybe that's Fitz.
Weeks pass, months, and nothing changes really. They grow close again, they laugh again, they eat lunch together and crack jokes and play base quests when it's warm.
Slowly, bit by bit, Keefe starts to notice subtle changes. The way Fitz’s gaze lingers on Dex and Dex’s lingers back. The way they walk together in the halls. He comes over for another impromptu night and finds Dex already there, sleeping peacefully under the covers. And they never talk about it. And it never gets confirmed. But, yeah.
