#sokeefitz week 2022 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

synonymroll648 · 2 years

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i know you two like the palm of my hand (it’s its own kind of burning brand)

pairings/relationships: sokeefitz and all the individual relationships within their triad :)

tws: graphic descriptions of violence, branding, intrusive thoughts, a mental break down or two or three (lost count, sorry), anxiety - lmk if i missed something!

additional notes: disclaimer: some of the lines from the first part of this before the time skip (you’ll see what i mean) are pulled from chapter 70 of lodestar/book 5. this is a late contribution to sokeefitz week 2022, hosted by the lovely @gay-otlc and @xanadaus :) this is based off the day 3 prompt: nightmares. (also, shoutout to @silveredviolets for inspiring me to write this fic in the first place!!) if you think this is worth a like, i’d really appreciate if you reblog too - and comments of any size are always a big dopamine dose <333

summary: Keefe hesitated. Fitz’s hand paused its ministrations, stalling in his hair at the way he tensed. Did he want to talk about it? Was he ready to? Was five years of speaking to nobody about the brand enough time to wait, or would the wound split open and bleed all over again?

It’s worth a shot, he decided. Sophie and Fitz had been there for the entirety of the Neverseen war and the moment Brant had burned him. They would get it more than anyone else would. “Trauma dump and cuddles?”

OR: Keefe's memory of Brant branding him in book 5, and the marks it left behind five years in the future, ft. loving partners Sophie Foster and Fitz Vacker.

word count: 6.7k

ao3 link (recommended)

taglist: @winterfireice @aphelea @camelspit @when-wax-wings-melt @bookwyrminspiration @squishmallow36 @bee-bxby (if the link’s broken for you and tumblr doesn’t notify you i’m sorry, bee) @gaslight-gaetkeep-gayboss @steal-nightmares-leave-dreams @sofia-not-sophie @three-bunnies-in-a-trenchcoat

fic under the cut :)

“You?” Sophie breathed.

It was a breath of disbelief. A breath of shock, a breath of dread. All the fight that had been winding up inside her, getting ready to spring out violently, drained out in tumultuous waves.

The force with which they washed over Keefe wasn’t the harshest she’d ever sent him, but they started to drown him anyway. The thing was, he didn’t even care. He didn’t even care that he could barely breathe, he didn’t even care that his chest felt so tight that his ribs would fracture.

No, for once, Keefe was stuck in his head.

Stuck in the ever-constricting loop of Why are you here why are you here WHY ARE YOU HERE WHYAREYOUHEREWHYAREYOUHERE. Stuck in a losing battle of trying and failing to come up with a plan to get her out safe, far away from these mossy stone ruins, from the Neverseen, from him.

But nothing was coming to mind. Nothing helpful was rising to the surface. All he could do was sink into the horror dragging him down to rock bottom.

An unwanted hand yanked him back into reality, yanked him into the conversation he’d zoned out of, yanked him close.

“But she won’t.” Finger-like tendrils of fire burned mere centimeters away from the tender skin of his chin. Keefe’s instincts screamed to scramble away from Brant, but he knew that wouldn’t end as well as staying still. Knew that would end in injuries nobody would bother to treat properly, knew that would compromise his role. “She still cares about this one. And she knows I’ll melt his face off if she misbehaves.”

Called it. The joke felt more grim than funny, even in his own headspace.

“He’s one of us!” Alvar shouted. A genuine protest.

Having someone defend him was nice, even if Alvar was wrong, even if Keefe was going to betray him eventually. Most people didn’t trust him too often anymore.

“That’s still up for debate. But he can prove it now.” Out of corner of Keefe’s eye, he could see Brant’s heavily scarred lips contort into something resembling a smile.

Nausea stirred in his stomach. Shattering the glass walls of Magnate Leto’s office and leaving Sophie alone in the wreckage, even if he’d lended her the protection of his cloak, had been brutal enough. Keefe didn’t know if he could do this. Keefe didn’t think he could hurt her again, no matter how much he tried to justify it as a stepping stone to successful infiltration of the Neverseen.

It sounded too much like something his mother would do to justify all the awful things she’d done to him.

The fire blazing up from the stump of Brant’s wrist moved closer to his throat. Keefe didn’t dare to swallow, didn’t dare to relieve his suddenly dry throat. He didn’t need to add burn marks around his Adam’s apple to his ever-growing collection of scars.

The fabric of Brant’s cloak rustled as he used his good hand to retrieve something from his pocket. Gold rimmed a silver triangle. In the center, a familiar gilded bird held a rose in its talons.

The Ruewen family crest.

Keefe didn’t even have time to wonder where he’d gotten it before Brant shoved him forward.

His hands flew out in an attempt to catch himself out of pure instinct, too fast for him to reign in. His thoughts shrieked. There’s fire right there I’m going to burn I’M GOING TO BURN-

But there wasn’t. No flames scorched his skin. Only a whoosh of bitterly cold air made contact.

Relief didn’t last. The controlled blaze sprouting up from the end of Brant’s arm was in front of him again, this time far back enough that Keefe could see it. Could see Brant put the crest right in the core of the white fire, could see sparks crackle off of it as the pin heated into glowing, red-hot metal.

A brand.

Later, Keefe would realize he’d made a timed choice of what he did in the miniscule delay between seeing the Ruewen crest become a brand and what Brant did with it. Later, he’d regret choosing the option that made the memory of it all so much more vivid, so much more painful.

Instead of hazarding a guess or two at what Brant was going to make him do to prove himself, instead of preparing for the worst, Keefe looked at his friends that he’d betrayed.

The forcefield Ruy’d made, trapping Tam and Fitz in a narrow cylinder, glowed yellow-white with electricity pulsing out from where they touched it. Tam banged against it with his fist, his scowl more vicious than Keefe had ever seen it. Fitz was crouched down, palm flattened out against the translucent wall. Keefe didn’t even have to touch him to know that the cutting concern in his tragically pretty eyes was visceral. To know that if there wasn’t a barrier between them, Fitz’s desperation would clench into all-consuming fists around Keefe and bruise his bones; would leave him hoarsely crying out I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry over and over again into deaf darkness.

And then there was the main source of Fitz’s desperation herself. Sophie Foster. She was beautiful. Beautiful from the frizzy stray strands of her hair at the top of her head to the slightly heeled boots she somehow hadn’t tripped in; lit harshly by the yellow of the forcefield and white of the bleak sunlight leaking through the windows of the ruins housing this living nightmare. And his presence had twisted that beauty into an expression of trepidation. Her clothes were mostly loose, but he could still see that her muscles were tensed. He could still see that her jaw was clenched, see that a stressed wrinkle had formed between her eyebrows, see the apprehension bordering on terror in her eyes.

Fear. Fear. He was causing her - all three of them, to feel fear. And rightfully so.

Just as the guilt began to plague his mind and poison him from the inside out, time sped up from the crawl it had slowed to, and Brant pressed the brand into his palm.

Hundreds of degrees of heat seared ruthlessly into his skin. Gold and silver charred the delicate layers with a vengeance; ruby dug into his hand like a knife hilt slammed to the ribs. A blood-curdling scream tore through Keefe. He thrashed. Tears blurred his vision. The only thing keeping all the helpless MAKE IT STOP’s and I’M BEGGING YOU’s and PLEASE’s at bay was his gritted teeth and quickly weaning resistance. Dark spots crept in like ink from the edges of his vision as the agonizing seconds went counting by. He had no idea where his blood was going, but it sure wasn’t going to his brain, because he was starting to feel like helium floating away from reality. But he clung on as stubbornly as the brand pressed into his hand.

“Now,” Milliseconds before his knees would have buckled, Brant pulled it out of his palm, “Show her that same pain. And in case you’re having trouble following along, Sophie, here’s how this is going to work. Tell us where you’re keeping Wylie, and I’ll have lover boy here put the scars only where you can see them. Try to resist, and he’ll give you the same makeover you gave me. And if you fight me,” he turned to Keefe, gray-blue eyes smoldering with something that Keefe could only describe as utterly psychopathic, “I’ll melt off parts of your body one by one. Starting with your fingers.”

Keefe jerked away. A strangled sob caught in the base of his throat, but he swallowed it back down. He surveyed the damage done to his hand through a heavily pained daze. Singed skin clearly bore the symbol of an eagle carrying a rose, made of sickening black lines with glimpses of pink flesh and crimson blood leaking out of their middles. Blearily, Keefe thought, At least I can’t see bone.

It was insane that his standards for when to be optimistic had dropped that low.

Sophie, he remembered. Scars. Only where you can see them. Or the same makeover you gave me. Scars no matter what.

The spottiness clouding his sight had begun to recede, but the nausea from before was back in full force.

Lose Neverseen’s trust, or burn Sophie, he realized. That was what his options boiled down to, unless he could invent some extra one out of nowhere. It would’ve been hard to do in a normal state, much less an I just got burned for thirteen seconds and it was literally one of the most physically painful things that has ever happened in my life so far state. Which was saying something, considering the life he led.

Keefe’s head spun. He was this close to vomiting all over the cobblestones beneath his feet.

What in the world was he supposed to even do?

Oxygen wheezed in and out of his lungs fast enough for the rhythm to be borderline staccato. Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out. Figure out a loophole, Keefe moved his arms a little, for balance, and almost fell over from the headrush. The marginally small amount of wind against his bleeding brand reminded him of salt seeping into his flesh. Don’t pass out don’t pass out don’t pass out, do. Not. Pass. Out.

Keefe took a slightly deeper, longer breath. His chest hurt from screaming, but the dizziness receded. Not much, but enough. He could feel liquid oozing out of a blister on his palm. He pointedly avoided looking at it.

Rare worry trembled his frame. Flames continued to sputter up from the stump of Brant’s bad arm, the tips just barely avoiding his nose. Brant’s not gonna let me do nothing much longer. Need to find another solution.

That was the exact moment Sophie & Co. intervened.

Brant flinched, and the flames went out. All the light he could see went out, in fact.

Keefe probably should’ve taken it as a warning for what came next.

He didn’t.

Hindsight and insurmountable rage crashed into him, knocked him down to the ground.

The thing about rage was that it could be felt one of two ways. In some cases, rage festered inside one’s chest and took over everything about them, built them up into something unstoppable, into a mindless creature solely focused on tearing everything down around it.

In others, one was not the source of the rage. They were on the receiving end of rage. A casualty in the path of it.

Right here and now, Keefe fell into the latter category.

Keefe’s legs gave out from underneath him. His spine collided with unforgiving rock first, quickly followed by his shoulders and the back of his head. It stung, and it would probably bruise later, but it was nothing compared to the fury clawing into every part of him that it could reach. It was nothing compared to the endless rage pouncing on him like a savage animal. Nothing compared to how it took its razor sharp teeth and split him open by every surface vein. Compared to how it proceeded to mercilessly tear him apart tissue by tissue. To how every bite carved I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU’s and THIS IS HOW BAD YOU’VE HURT ME’s and I HATE YOU’s into his bones. Bruises sounded kind, at this point.

His muscles twitched and spasmed. Keefe was too far gone to scream, too far gone to remember all the things he’d wanted to rasp out.

If you can hear me, Keefe, try to fight through the darkness. He knew that voice. Feminine and sweet. Commanding, powerful. It was Sophie. Sophie transmitting to him. Shove it aside and come back to the surface.

A labored breath hissed in and out of his teeth, sharp as a missed opportunity.

Apparently, he wasn’t coming to fast enough. Because desperately enough to bruise his heart, Sophie screamed:

KEEFE, WAKE UP!

Keefe woke up.

Keefe woke up drenched in a cold sweat. Woke up in a twisted cocoon of blankets. Woke up with an aching chest, with a throat screamed raw, with phantom pains lancing through his palm, with saltwater dried on his cheeks and even more welling in his eyes.

Woke up with two of his favorite people in the whole wide world by his sides.

“Oh, thank god, you’re awake now,” From his right, the hushed words rushed out like a waterfall. The small kind. The gentle kind.

Sophie.

“Is physical touch good or bad right now?” she asked.

Keefe was staring at the ceiling. He closed his eyes. Let peaceful darkness envelope him. Let himself sink down to the bottom of it. Sophie wasn’t meaning to, he knew, but she was reminding him of all the things he’d done to hurt her; of how he didn’t deserve her, of how he didn’t fully understand why she kept coming back. Of how even if she’d forgiven him for everything, there were some things Keefe still blamed himself for.

Of how it hurt. The kind of hurt that plagued his mind and poisoned him from the inside out.

Keefe was too tired to remember what it was called. Too tired to try to remember, even though he knew it was important. Even though he knew it could kill him if it tried.

But he was awake enough to imagine another body up against his, to try to figure out the spots where that would feel nice and the spots where that would feel icky. To answer her question. Because he’d do nearly anything for her if she asked.

“Depends on where,” he managed. Even to his own ears, he sounded like a living devastation. Like a husk of a soul.

“Can you explain a bit more, or are questions too hard right now? No wrong answers.” To his left, fabric rustled and the mattress dipped as Fitz shifted. Tilted towards him.

No wrong answers. The phrase was by far the most helpful to hear for Fitz - the boy who’d been held to standards so high they scraped the sky, and used to have breakdowns as bad as the failure of Icarus’ wings over not saying the right thing - but it was helpful to hear for the rest of them too. It was helpful for Keefe, right now, to know that the pressure was off where he’d thought it was on. Where he’d thought it would strangle him.

He still thought it’d strangle him, at some point, but at least there was one less source. One more factor that said, Not today. Today is not the day that you’ll bite the dust.

“I can try,” was all Keefe could offer. If Keefe tried to promise a guaranteed outcome, it’d be as empty as his current sense of self-worth. And lying about important matters had been something he swore off years ago.

Silence awaited his continuation. The patient kind. The soothing kind.

Keefe took his time putting himself together enough to respond, because that was what he knew they wanted him to do. It was what he wanted, too.

“I think I should be okay. Stay- stay away from my palm, though. The left one.”

Stay away from my palm, though. It was a request he’d never made before. A very specific request. A request that he’d contradicted a million times, with all the instances where he’d pleaded with puppy eyes for a hand to hold, where he’d searched for a curve of a waist or flat expanse of a shoulder blade to grasp, where he’d melted into kisses against the inside of his hand.

Vulnerable. This wasn’t the most vulnerable Keefe had ever felt in his twenty years of being alive so far, but it was close.

“Again, if explaining feels uncomfortable for any reason, just say so. It’s genuinely fine. But, if I may ask - why?” Fitz queried.

The darkness that had seemed comforting a few moments earlier, that had seemed easier to pretend to float in than absorb reality with his eyes, suddenly felt like monsters getting ready to pounce on him from all sides. In the back of his mind, he knew it was his brain playing tricks on him, knew it was him blindly assigning the role of predator to something he could somewhat control when he felt like prey.

Keefe snapped his eyes open. A fretful response from his frazzled nerves; a form of self-sabotage in a place he knew was safe.

To his left, a thumb ring on an outstretched hand briefly flashed silver as it withdrew from him. “Sorry, I almost forgot to ask first - would it make you more comfortable or uncomfortable if I played with your hair?” Fitz asked.

Keefe rolled his head to the side. A single bedside lamp had been turned on, bathing everything in a glow that was warm and golden- no, not golden. Fitz hated being associated with gold, plus, the lighting reminded him more of a hue somewhere between overhead streetlights at 1am and the transition between yellow and orange in sunset roses. That hue, that magical in between hue, honeyed all the colors and edges he could see. Shadows made of shades of grape and mauve stretched out over the planes of Fitz’s face and the folds in his striped pajamas onto their bed.

Keefe blinked up at his boyfriend. Took in the slight bedhead ruffling the faded pink ends of his brown hair, took in the way the light caught the whites of his eyes but left his teal irises a little more muted, so their vibrancy didn’t give Keefe a bisexual panic attack. Took in how the bronze of his skin looked as rich as ever. Took in how Fitz slouched over him, close but not touching, respectful as always in his wanting.

Kind of like there’s a forcefield between us, an unwanted thought piped up. Do you think that if you mess up and deny him enough, he’d break the barrier and shake your shoulders so hard to try and get some sense into you that it’d leave bruises down to the bone?

Keefe tipped his head so Fitz had better access to his hair. “Please,” he whispered. Please forgive me. Please have mercy on me. Please get me out of my head.

Fitz scooted further up on the mattress, his right thigh close enough that Keefe would’ve treated it like a pillow if he weren’t so deadset on not making major movements. His left knee remained a careful distance away. He picked up actual pillows from behind him and stacked them against the headboard to lean against. Keefe caught a glimpse of the underside of Fitz’s hand - a sandy sort of shade from not getting as much sun exposure as the rest of him - before his fingers wove into Keefe’s hair and scratched his scalp just the way he liked.

Keefe let out a contented hum. It came out more like a sigh with a fragment of a note from his vocal cords thrown in.

“Do you wanna talk about your palm, or something else, or nothing at all?” Sophie asked.

Keefe looked as far to the right as he could without moving. The view he got of his girlfriend was hazy and had a weird double effect from one eye seeing his nose and one not, but he could still see her. Could still see Sophie leaned over to the side like Calla’s tree, pretty as panakes blossoms in her dorky alicorn PJ’s and mild case of pineapple hair, sitting on her hands. Resisting the urge to pluck at her eyelashes, maybe.

Keefe hesitated. Fitz’s hand paused its ministrations, stalling in his hair at the way he tensed. Did he want to talk about it? Was he ready to? Was five years of speaking to nobody about the brand enough time to wait, or would the wound split open and bleed all over again?

Sophie smiled the tender smile he’d fallen head over heels for as a teenager. The fact that he was somebody who got to see that, who got to have that directed at him, stirred up butterflies in Keefe’s stomach. “Of course,” she murmured. “Where do you want me?”

For a hot second, Keefe blanked. “Uhhhhhh… side?” He flopped his right arm out to use as a headrest.

Sophie was already unfolding her knees from underneath herself. “Any more areas I need to avoid touching?”

“Don’t think so,”

Sophie nodded. She laid down next to him, wiggling around until she found a position she was comfortable with. Said position was one where her legs loosely sandwiched his right thigh, and her ear pressed up against his chest. Right above his heartbeat. Blond hair spilled across his collarbones and tickled his neck, cool and silky in texture. Once upon a time, Sophie’s curls could reach his shoulders too, but that hadn’t happened since she’d gotten a bob cut two years ago. Her toes brushed his shins, which felt chilly even through his gulon pajama pants.

Her right hand settled on top of the dip of his left shoulder, limp and relaxed. Her entire body was limp and relaxed, really.

It was nice. Nice to be trusted like this. To be trusted the way he trusted Fitz with his precious hair, because he knew Fitz would be kind and careful and wouldn’t mind Keefe turning into an oversized housecat after two minutes of his touch.

To be trusted not to burn her.

All the fuzzy feels easing his muscles vanished.

Sophie wasn’t an empath, but she seemed to feed off of his emotions with the way she immediately froze in place. Or maybe off of his body language. Probably the latter. “What is it? Am I in a bad spot? Or close to one?”

Keefe forced himself to breathe. There’s not even anything nearby I could burn her with. That’s not even a reasonable worry.

A part of him replied, Well, not with that attitude. Anything can be a weapon if you try hard enough.

The inhale-exhale pattern that had been going strong faltered. Anxiety morphed into the beginnings of nausea, into feeling like he was crawling in his own skin and just wanted out.

“Intrusive thoughts,” he croaked.

“Does me being closer make them better or worse?” Sophie’s tone was so caring that it made him ache all over again. Made his fingertips itch because of reasons he couldn’t decipher, because of unknowns that scared him.

Keefe let out a nervous laugh. He clenched his hands into the sheets. Stay there. Don’t touch anyone. “Well, the intrusive thoughts are about hurting you, so I think that says enough,”

“Would me moving be a relief or a reason to feel guilty?”

This. This was a question that would’ve felt hyperspecific, but ever since the three of them realized that - surprise, surprise - violence was something they were all scared they’d fall back to as they had in the war, this had become normalized. Breakdowns had become less common over the years, but not so much that they forgot how to deal with them.

Keefe took a while to think about it before giving up. “I don’t know.”

“Okay. I’m gonna stay here for now, just in case. If you need me to move away, just say so.”

Just in case. Just in case it would cause guilt over relief, because guilt was one of the hardest emotions to ease.

Words were hard enough already that he decided to stick with using a bare minimum of them. So instead of saying something like Okay or Alright or You’re so considerate that it makes me want to start ugly crying and no matter how many times you tell me it’s because you love me, it’s hard to believe that this is real, that this isn’t a dream I’m going to wake up from and realize I’m still fifteen and hurting, he just went, “Mhm.”

“Sorry to hit you with another question,” Fitz started, sounding genuinely apologetic and small, “But do you want me to move? Further away, stay…?”

“Stay.” This time, Keefe’s reply is immediate. Stay. Don’t leave. Stay stay stay, even though I don’t know if I deserve it. Stay, because I’m this close to trying to run away from my problems like I’m sixteen years old all over again, and you’re my anchor. Stay.

“I won’t go anywhere,” Fitz promised. He sealed it with a kiss to the forehead.

Keefe started to tip his head up, a silent request for another. And another, and another, and another and another and another, probably. If history was anything to go by.

But then the guilt came back. Came back and said, History also says that you have a track record of seriously hurting the people you care about. Do you want to ruin the best period of your life so far, just for a little short-term satisfaction? Do you want to kiss him, just to stab him in the back again? Do you want to hold her, just to burn her eventually? They say that the third time’s the charm - this’ll be the last betrayal before they kick you out of their lives permanently.

“Come back to me, Keefe.”

It was kinda crazy, how Sophie had only whispered the words into his neck, yet they held enough authority that Keefe’s mind cleared immediately.

Sophie’s only movements were the ones making words fall from her lips, were only faint puffs of breath by his Adam’s apple. It made him feel like he was beginning to burn alive, but he welcomed it. Found comfort in it instead of fear. “You’re spiraling. That’s fine. But you’re spiraling away from us. That’s not fine. Let it out, Keefe. Let it all out so we can help you. It’s not a burden to us.”

“It’s a privilege,” Fitz added.

Privilege was not a word Fitz took lightly. Privilege was a title that was handed out very carefully, very selectively. To be labeled by Fitz Vacker as a privilege meant, You are special to me. You are something I love. You are something I am grateful to have in my life, whether you realize it or not.

Pent up thoughts and feelings spilled out into the open air like ink onto a blank page, like dark spots consuming vision. Consuming lucidity.

“The nightmare was about the brand. When Brant branded me. In- in… wherever that one ruin was. With the Ruewen crest. To my palm. What made it so awful was that the nightmare didn’t twist it off course of what actually happened, so I couldn’t just go Oh it wasn’t that bad - I relived all of it. It started from when Foster said ‘You?’ and ended right before I got out of the inflicting funk because- because the real Foster screamed at me to wake up. And that’s good, because the nightmare would’ve just hurt more the longer it went on- but, like, I just-”

Keefe broke off. The nerves in his branded hand didn’t scream, moreso whisper-yelled worries. Warned, I am a mark of all the things that you don’t want to think about but will never forget, and you’ll never be able to remove. If you say all the things I remind you of out loud, are you sure they won’t come true? Are you sure they won’t look at your hand and be reminded of every reason they should stay away from you? You do it every day, why won’t they? Why wouldn’t they think about all the ways that could’ve gone worse? About how desperate they were to get out of that situation, about how scared you made them? Everything inside him started to throb hollowly, echoing the memories. Water glossed over his eyes.

“You’re doing great,” Fitz praised. Quietly. Softly. Because any other tone would break this moment. Would break this safe bubble they’d created in this room washed with light of 1am streetlamps and sunset roses, with loving hands in his hair, with the weight of the most forgiving person he’d ever known breathing trust on his chest.

A bit more shakily than Keefe would’ve liked, he raised his left hand up to press his fingertips against his chin, and then flicked them away, palm up. Sign language for, “Thank you.” Fitz wasn’t a polyglot, but Keefe and Sophie had taught him enough basic ASL for him to understand what Keefe was saying.

A small smile crinkled the corners of Fitz’s eyes, code for, Of course. I love you.

Keefe’s breath hitched. Nobody called him out for it. Keefe was grateful for it.

He continued.

“Every time I think about it, it- it scares me a lot. Not just because it literally left me with-“ Keefe’s vocal chords choked up. Refused to work. Get it out in the open, get it out in the open. He thought. Cards flat out on the table. It’s easier that way. It’s easier that way. He cleared his throat. “With third degree burns. That took… uh, how long was it… around a year to heal, I think? The brand was on my palm, so it’d reopen a lot.”

Sophie hissed in a breath. The hand that had laid limp by his shoulder clenched into his nightshirt. Distress that wasn’t his hit him like shockwaves.

It took Keefe a moment longer than he would’ve liked to realize why.

Brant had burned her and Dex during the kidnapping.

How in the world had he forgotten?

Keefe swore. “I should’ve thought about triggers,” Keefe swore again, “I’m so so sorry-”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Sophie said weakly. “You were super out of it, and we both said we’d help. It’s fine. Really.”

“No it’s not,” Keefe insisted. Like a seasonal illness, guilt came back as strong as ever, decaying his mind. Rotting his insides.

“It’s all really far away now,” Sophie said. “They’re mostly healed wounds, in mental terms. It’s just… it took a year to heal? And it kept reopening? Over and over?”

Keefe couldn’t quite name what specific variation of fear was causing her voice to get quieter and quieter, but it was there. It was there and it was painfully real.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Keefe said slowly. “But what’s with the self-blame you’re giving off, Foster?”

The question hung delicately in the air, filling the stretching silence.

Finally, Sophie sighed. “If I’d inflicted sooner-”

“Uh-uh, nope, we’re not going there,” Fitz interrupted. “I was there, and I literally talked to you about when to time your inflicting. You couldn’t have done that sooner if you’d tried - everything happened super fast.”

“Apparently my memory of it is way slower than your guys’, but otherwise, I totally agree. Foster, the thing that scares me the most about that memory is what could’ve happened if you hadn’t inflicted when you did.” Heartbeats pounded against his ribcage. Nerves clammed up in his stomach. Muscles trembled. Fingers twitched restlessly against silk sheets. Saltwater stung his eyes the same way that salt had stung his wounds in King Dimitar’s ring. Words shook on the way out of Keefe’s mouth. “I… I don’t know what I would’ve done then. I don’t know if I would’ve resisted or not. I don’t know if I would have hurt you more than- more than I already have.”

I don’t know if I would have pressed the brand into your palm or not. I don’t know how long I would have held it there for. I don’t know how long it would have taken to satisfy Brant - if it would have been just a few seconds, or long enough to clearly show bone. I don’t know how I would’ve made you hurt worse than ever before, but I know I would have found a way. I don’t know if I would think it was worth it or not. I don’t know what kind of person it would have made me.

Keefe wanted to say it all aloud, but he couldn’t get it out.

Fresh tears trickled down his temples and into his hair; ghostly relieving to his simmering skin, haunting to his pride. Lungs trapped inside tissues of pain screamed for more air, more more more more. Gasps whistled it in and out, raw against his throat. Just as they wanted.

Would I have done what Brant wanted? Would I have done what the Neverseen wanted?

Two separate questions. An unknowable amount of answers. An unknowable amount of skeletons in his closet, reaching out their marred fingers and trying to replace his structure. His identity. His everything.

Keefe tried holding his breath, tried getting himself under control, but it didn’t work. Not by a long shot. The sobs he was trying to back were relentless animals tearing him apart with their too-sharp teeth, gnawing on his flesh the way Sophie’s rage had chipped his bones what simultaneously felt like eons ago and just yesterday. His attempt as silence quickly turned into hiccups and a rising feeling of suffocation.

Lips brushed against Keefe’s collarbone as lightly as gossamer wings, so faint that he almost didn’t notice. I’m here, it meant. I’m not going anywhere. You’re safe. I’m safe. We’re safe.

A cry more desperate than the rest before it wrestled its way out of his mouth. Keefe loosened his grip on self-control and dipped into self-indulgence. He let himself wrap his right arm, which he’d been forcing to keep still, around Sophie and held her even closer than she already was. He let himself crane his head towards Fitz’s thigh, let himself shudder when Fitz got the message and moved close enough that Keefe could rest his head in Fitz’s lap, skimming his fingers through Keefe’s hair the whole time.

“I’ve got you,” Fitz whispered. “We both do.”

You do. You two have always had me. Always, always, always. Always and forever.

They stayed like that for long enough that Keefe lost track of time. It could’ve only been a few minutes. It could’ve been over an hour. He didn’t know. All he knew was that they were a safe net to break and fall apart in. That when they said that they had him, they meant it. They cradled his crumbling pieces to their chests, waiting to collect them all before they gently laid his fragments out on the floor and helped him puzzle himself back together. They murmured compliments so softly he almost didn’t catch them, they offered small gifts of physical affection; they gave him doses of dopamine, shots of serotonin. Like it was nothing, because he was their everything.

When coherency finally returned, the first thing that Keefe noticed was that he had gotten snot and drool all over Fitz’s pajama pants. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“For what?” Fitz’s tone matched his bewildered laughter. “You didn’t do anything wrong, what’s there to apologize for?”

Keefe raised his eyebrows, making sure to blink multiple times for dramatic effect. Are you serious?

Keefe hadn’t even said all the repressed things the nightmare had brought to the surface. He was kind of only half awake at the moment, but he was sure he could dig through his mind again and unpack it all. It was a lot, and he didn’t really want to do it right now, but he could do it. He could do it for them.

“What are you thinking about?” Fitz asked.

Keefe snorted. “You’re literally a telepath,”

“You didn’t say you wanted us in your head, so we’ve stayed out.” Fitz explained.

Fitz stopped there, probably for the sake of not putting too much pressure on him, but Keefe could make out the rest of the offer anyway. Do you want us in your head? Would it make it easier for you?

There had been moments where it would have been easier, but they’d passed. Keefe was piercingly aware of how his memories had stripped him bare of his pride and self-security and bravado, of how he had bared the refreshed bruises on his heart to his partners. They wouldn’t ever hold it against him, Keefe knew. But that didn’t change the fact that this whole thing had been terrifying, terrifying in a way that he hadn’t experienced in a long time. It didn’t change the fact that he just wanted to curl up and sleep peacefully from this godforsaken hour until two in the afternoon.

“Thanks,” Keefe muttered.

“No problem,” Sophie said. “Do you want to keep talking, or go to sleep, or something else?”

If Keefe had been a few years younger, or maybe a little less tired, he would’ve pounced on the slim chance of going to the human world and getting sugar high until sunrise. But he wasn’t either of those. He had a little more mental stability now, and his eyes were already halfway closed, and he was legitimately going to make the lamest decision on the planet.

“Is it okay if we pick up on this later? My body says I’m an old man who can’t stay up all night anymore.”

Fitz sighed. “One: you’re literally only twenty years old. Two: if you weren’t exhausted after the emotional rollercoaster you’ve been through the past three hours, then I would be very concerned.”

“It’s been three hours since I woke up?”

“Not quite. It’s been about three hours since we woke up to you screaming in your sleep. I’m counting the nightmare as part of your emotional rollercoaster.” Most people would’ve said that with a clearly irritated undertone, but Fitz just stated it as if it were a mundane fact.

Don’t say it, they’re not gonna want you to say it, they already told you not to say it-

Instincts from being a kid under Sencen roofs won over adult reasoning, and a quiet “Sorry,” slipped out of Keefe’s mouth.

“Keefe, you and Fitz have woken up to me screaming in my sleep more times than any of us can count, and you guys always say I shouldn’t be sorry. Why wouldn’t that apply to you?” Sophie’s question was rhetorical, Keefe was sure of it.

He answered anyway, words muffled from pressing his cheek up against Fitz’s leg. “I dunno.”

“Exactly.” Sophie traced the folds in the shoulder area of his shirt. It tickled a little, but not enough to make Keefe squirm uncontrollably. “Do you wanna sleep like this, or in a different position?”

Keefe thought about it for a moment. “Spoons.”

“KeefeunlessyouwannabethebigspoonI’mcallingdibsdealwithitFitz,” Sophie blurted.

They all burst out into laughter.

“Can’t wait to have Foster complaining about how hard it is to reach around us,” Keefe teased.

Fitz joined in. “I can’t wait to hear Sophie complaining about the blankets going over her head since her head will be so much lower on the bed than usual.”

“Guys,” Sophie groaned.

“Fine, fine, we’ll stop,” Keefe relented. “For now.”

From there, they fell into bickering with no fire behind it. No torrents, no hurricanes, no earthquakes either - just words delivered as gently as one would tack a sticky note with a silly doodle and a kind message on top of a stack of dreary paper work. Keefe would know, because he’d done it for both his partners too many times to count. And eventually, they fell into each other, too; fell into the warm rising and falling curves of each other, fell into hands around waists and arms pillowing heads, fell into the sweetness of kisses along wrists and cheeks and ears and shoulders and necks. Fell into sleep, devoid of bad memories and twisted realities.

And when Keefe woke up, Keefe woke up drenched in rays of sunshine peaking through the windows. Woke up in a cozy tangle of blankets and limbs. Woke up without a single ache in his chest, without a throat screamed raw. Woke up to only powerless whispers of thoughts in the raised lines of rose-bearing eagle on his palm. Woke up only blinking bleariness from ten solid hours of rest from his eyes, not tears.

Woke up with two of his favorite people in the whole wide world pressed to his front and back, actually sleeping for once.

#sokeefitz week 2022 #kotlc #keeper of the lost cities #sokeefitz #kotlc fic #fic #kotlc fanfic #sokeefitz fic #sokeefitz nightmare fic #except this time it's ACTUALLY the fic!#sophie foster #keefe sencen #fitz vacker #y'all there were a lot more things i could've done with this story #but it was getting long and i was tired and i just. wanted it to be done. and i think it's good where it's at #lowkey kinda scared posting this because i'm in this loop of 'oh god what if it's not good enough what if i'm just embarrassing myself'#even though this is TUMBLR. the fucking CLOWN SITE #yes you will get your sokeefitz roadtrip fic eventually i swear #before next school year. i promise #next school year as in 2023-2024 #yes that sounds ridiculous but i am a meticulous writer and i need time if y'all want quality #ultimately i just wanna get it done before the end of 2022 but. i know how i am. especially during the school year #HERE WE GO HITTING THE POST BUTTON HOPING TO DEAR GOD I DON'T REGRET THIS

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