hate your lover, love your hater, and be studied by her friend: pt.3
The next morning, Stria woke up to the sound of twittering birds, and felt incredibly positive about the day to come.
Then she saw that she had several messages from Keefe lined up on her phone, and shoved that thought right back into the hopeful recesses of her mind from which it had dared poke its head out.
I'm fictional?! he'd written, at what was 3:26am for her. How can I be fictional?! I'm a real elf!
'Unfortunately,' Stria muttered, and kept reading, brushing a strand of dark hair which had come to rest on her face as she tried hard not to think about Keefe-Pinocchio parallels. And HOW does Shannon Messenger, whoever that is, know about me? Do other people hate me? Do they like me? Where do I meet them?
'He's a hazard to society,' said Stria, thinking about the horrors of the Pinterest fandom finding him. Then she typed: I've already told you that don't know how Shannon accesses you, and I don't think it would be good for humans at large to find out you're real, so you can put that thought aside forever. But the truth is that she accesses Sophie more, so you can rest assured that she's infringing on her privacy more than you are—though the bar is quite high, I'll admit, so she's doing well by some metric. Now, please do not bother me until you've read the entirety of my document, if at all. Actually, I'd love it if you never bothered me at all, thanks very much.
She was going to keep all of her unwilling conversation with Keefe to evenings, she decided. If she could schedule arguing hours, then she could schedule this too.
'He said what?!' Katie asked, tilting her head to look at Stria with what could only be termed 'delighted bewilderment'.
'He said, and I quote, 'I joke because it's hard for me to talk about serious things otherwise'. He really said it,' Stria told her.
Stria and Katie were sitting on a park bench with their coffees in hand (as they often did on mornings), watching people's dogs frolic in the grass and trying to pretend they weren't talking about a secret part of their world which really did exist. It could have been an idyllic meeting among friends if it hadn't been for Keefe Sencen. As usual.
'His denialistic tendencies!' exclaimed Katie. 'Oh, I'm going to ask him how he is later. I'm very much looking forward to what he says. I know you and I disagree about him, but we have similar talking points sometimes.'
'You can have him for all I care,' Stria said, looking up at the sky in bleakest despair. 'He's insufferable. To the point where I've decided to schedule looking-at-his-texts only in the evening—otherwise I'll lose it. I need to hate him with someone else. But I also feel like spreading the news 'KOTLC real' could get very inconvenient very fast.'
Katie sighed fondly. 'See, now that Keefe is real, studying him feels a bit awkward. But I can manage if I'm subtle about it? Actually: what if, in the interest of duel spirit, you put me in a group chat with him, and you can battle it out about the rant while I watch?'
Splendid. 'So long as you don't defend him,' Stria said, then laughed. 'Defend him in private with me—not in front of him.' At least she would have emotional support of some sort, even if the person supporting her liked Keefe. And while she'd almost given up hope that she could convince Katie to hate Keefe, recent events had taught her that there was always a slim possibility that unlikely things could happen.
'Oh thank goodness,' Katie murmured. 'I was really concerned for a moment there.'
Stria pulled her phone out and checked it—no messages yet! Glorious. It seemed that her theory about time passing slowly in the Lost Cities was right. Shannon would have fictionalized some things—perhaps time periods in the 'Forbidden Cities' was one of them?
She quickly made the group chat, added Katie and Keefe, told Keefe to talk to her in the group chat if at all, and then went on with her day.
Soon enough (almost too soon), evening came. Stria settled into bed, got out her own copy of her rant, and opened the can of worms that was her brand-new group chat. Sure enough, there were messages from Keefe, waiting for her.
I...I never actually thought about it this way, said the first message.
Stria did a double-take, and read on to find the following quote from her rant:
“‘Want me to push you?’ Keefe offered, laughing as Sophie jerked away from him ‘Come on, it’ll be fun—for me at least.’” (4) I have a physical copy of Everblaze, so I can list page numbers, and boy it didn’t take long for Keefe’s jerkish tendencies to show. He literally admits to Sophie that he’d find it fun to watch her be uncomfortable, which not only makes him completely selfish, but also somewhat cruel. [everblaze]
I mean, Keefe's message went on, I know she was scared, but she's Foster! Yeah, she's scared of things, but I'm always at least ten times more scared than she is. She's brave—far more brave than I could ever be.
Then came Katie's message: You think she's brave!!! That's very sweet. I mean, she certainly has fears and they're an important part of her narrative and should be acknowledged and respected, but it's great to know that you do actually see her bravery.
Nothing else, sweet relief. Stria began to type. The point isn't that you think she's brave. The point is that she has to be brave because you're an idiot and scare her far more than she already is. If you think it's fun to see her scared, then I hope you're aware that it's a terrible thing to do and that you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Not that she cared. Keefe's morality was his own, and if she could forget all of this and pretend that he was fictional, she would. But...he'd recognized that he'd done something wrong, which was more than she'd hoped.
Could Katie be right about him being able to improve?
A message. Keefe. I guess I thought selfishly—just like I always do. I guess I get why you hate me now? I mean, if I saw someone being this selfish then I might hate them too. It's just...you can't tell when it's you.
And there his obnoxious behavior was again. Stop the pity party, Stria told him. If you want to self-reflect, you can keep reading the rant or, you know, *actually* reflect without the aid of secondary sources. If not, please don't talk to me. You've already ruined my peace of mind, and I don't want to see how it can get worse.
Would you like me more if I was nicer? he asked then.
Stria almost tossed her phone at the wall, but stopped herself and replied: No?!!!! There is NO Keestria—and I'll have you know that that's a terrible ship name, by the way—that's ever going to happen. You cannot make me like you. Good for Sophie if you somehow become a better person than the utter idiot that you are, but I care not one jot.
Silence. Stria watched her screen in what she admitted was some anticipation. And then the message came: a quote.
“‘You let Keefe help.’ ‘Not by choice.’” (124) Sophie literally admits that she didn’t want Keefe to help her. But in typical Keefe fashion, he forces his way into everything, because he’s nosy and rude and can’t keep himself in line. I’ve said this already and I’ll probably say it again, but I wouldn’t mind this if Shannon treated it like a real character flaw instead of just a quirky little trait. I would be okay with it if Keefe realized what he was doing was wrong and apologized and made an effort to get better. But he never does. [everblaze]
She'd have told me if she didn't want my help, Keefe said.
Insufferable! You're insufferable, Stria wrote—may as well tell him. There is NOTHING that can be done to help you. See above: you never get better. Sophie telling you 'no' doesn't help because you don't listen to her, to the point where she's going to learn to simply acquiesce to your demands for secrets or involvement because she knows you'll force it regardless of what she says. AND you don't apologize. You don't improve. There's nothing anyone can do, and since you're real, I can't even blame Shannon anymore.
He still didn't get it, and Stria didn't expect him to. This was the person who made incredibly cringe-inducing potty jokes about every three seconds. This was the person who was allegedly an Empath but at best toneless (and at worst malicious) about reading a room before making his response. He wasn't going to understand because a random teenager who had until recently believed him to be fictional was telling him that he was a terrible person.
I guess I get what you mean, Keefe replied at last. I don't know how I'll fix it, but I'll try. I never *wanted* to do anything Sophie would have hated.
A short pause. And then:
Clearly you know me better than I know myself, Stria. If you keep telling me every time I mess up, maybe...maybe eventually I won't be so much of a mess anymore.
And when had she signed up to become his conscience? She could have written reams on how entitled a thought that was, but she still had the Unlocked rant to complete, and Unraveled—if it was about to drop, then she assumed that whatever was going on was during or post Stellarlune somehow, though Keefe's personality wasn't quite tracking with recent events—was about to drop. She also had a real life (which would have been far better had Keefe not existed in it) to deal with.
She replied: That in itself showcases what sort of person you are, but I don't have the time to dissect it yet. (Katie, if you want to take it, all yours.) I'm not going to replace the faulty voice in your head, you dolt. The rant is yours to use if you want, but please—if you have learned anything from this, STOP bothering me.
Keestria forever, remember? he said.
You will never learn.
Stria turned her phone off and slid under her sheets. She was done with him. She was done with this. She was unsure if she'd even be able to read Unraveled knowing what she now did.
Think about brown-eyed Vackers, she told herself. And with that valiant attempt to cleanse her brain, she fell asleep.
*
If you're picturing Katie as the third person in the chat with the love confession meme, then that's what I'm picturing too. Except this is more like two scientists locked in a room with their test subject.
I'm vaguely contemplating turning this into a chatfic since the lines of regular prose are starting to become scant. But they'll probably start appearing more soon so I won't unless you'd rather see it as that than as anything else.
This is also where the actual plot of Keefe self-improvement starts, so it may be where you start hating the direction of the story. But I can promise that there will be no actual Strieefe whatsoever. Part 4 coming whether you request it or not because I'm attached now :)
Also fun fact: the entirety of this fic (at least up until now) has been written straight into your askbox because I cannot fathom writing (not)strieefe in an actual document.
Until next chapter!
— @worldsunlikemyown/meta anon
part one, part two. also a quick note that this was sent to me before unraveled's release (though i'm sure if you've already read the fic, you gathered that). so. i don't know where i was going with that actually lmfao. but i guess nothing in the fic could be influenced by unraveled, not even subconsciously. anyway
