Archive of Our Own

When Keefe was thirteen years old, he did something he's regretted it every day since.

Fitz seems perfectly fine.

i. thirteen

"We can't do that again."

Keefe stares at his best friend's wide eyes, flared nostrils, and wonders what could be the cause for those words, too sharp for the hazy dullness of mornings. "Sorry? What?"

Fitz pushes past him, plants himself onto Keefe's bed, then immediately uproots again. He paces on the floor, shoes scuffing into the polished floor. "You know."

Oh.

Last night's sleepover. Two boys sharing the room. The floor was too hard, Keefe offered for Fitz to sleep up on the bed with him. Seconds, minutes, neither of them able to sleep, so they started talking again. Soft breaths and huffed laughs, shivers sent right down their spines. The curtain's shadow fell on Fitz's face when he turned to Keefe, and it was different that time, when their eyes met, when Fitz leaned closer.

Keefe had long wondered how Fitz's lips felt, and then he'd found out.

He'd felt the horrific thrill straight in his stomach, felt it seep its poison into his bloodstream, but he wouldn't be the first to pull away. So Fitz was. His face shuttered close, this shadow far darker than the first. He rolled over again, mumbled that he was trying to sleep now. Silence was forced to fill the space between them for the rest of the night.

And now, night has passed. Morning sun glares into Keefe's eyes, and he blinks but it's impossible to look past Fitz's wrung hands, his tense steps. 

"It was just a kiss," he whispers.

Fitz shakes his head. "It doesn't matter. We can't."

Keefe stares at him. He doesn't say anything until Fitz begins to turn away, and then his words are moving too fast for his mind, a last desperate attempt to bring back the warm gaze he thought he'd known so well.

"You're the one that wanted to. That kissed me. It was you."

"Stop," Fitz snaps. It's fierce, aching, the look on his face before he turns himself away, leaving Keefe stranded, still at the foot of the bed.

Everything goes back to normal instantly. So normal that a lot of the time, Keefe is quite sure he'd dreamt Fitz, dreamt the whole night. Fitz doesn't speak of it again, too careful to ever drop a hint that it had affected him in any way whatsoever.

But Keefe knew it had. He'd seen the punched look on Fitz's face before he'd left. He could never, not ever, have conjured up something that devastating. So the night must have been real, and what did that mean?

Nothing apparently, not to Fitz.

Keefe tries to forget too. He does a good job for someone with a photographic memory. He puts it at the very back of his mind and leaves it be, so well hidden that he doesn't think of it anymore.

(Not until it's the middle of the night, and some cosmos must align against his favor because the depths of his memory are brought back so intensely he's left panting and clutching his heart, trying desperately to forget again.)

ii. fourteen

Fitz's eyes keep flicking away. 

Keefe notices it but he rambles on, trying to get Fitz to engage in the conversation. Because Fitz had begged him to come to this dance, and now here they were, and it looked as if Fitz would rather be doing anything else with anyone else. He's completely spaced out, wringing his fingers absent-mindedly, biting his lip as he stares at a balloon. A balloon! 

Suddenly, Keefe stops talking. His last words hang in the air, an abrupt cliff drop. 

Now, Fitz looks at him. He blinks. "What were you saying?"

Keefe's fingers curl in annoyance by his side, but he doesn't do anything. "I'm gonna get some punch."

"Okay. I'll, um—I'll wait here, I guess."

"You don't want anything?" Keefe asks, but there's no point. Fitz is already half-turned, gaze on a small crowd that's loudly cheering about something in the corner.

Keefe gets his drink. He spills it immediately. He refills it. Every second it takes adds new sparks to the simmering under his skin. 

Fuck Fitz, actually. Who makes someone come to a dance, a school dance, and doesn't have the decency to talk to them? Keefe knew a lot of people here, all his classmates. But he'd come for Fitz. 

He downs the glass, then stops himself from getting another refill. The juice is already sloshing unpleasantly in his stomach. He spins around, about to head back to Fitz, when a hand rests on his shoulder.

"Keefe!" Klaridy exclaims, tucking auburn bangs behind her ears. "I thought you weren't coming."

Keefe can't help but smile at her. Klaridy is bright and funny and has harbored a small crush on him since the beginning of the year. "Well, I wasn't going to."

"Glad you changed your mind," she tells him, grinning and looping her arms around him in a quick hug. Floral perfume, lilies exploding in bloom. He breathes her in and finds comfort in how she, at least, wants to talk to him.

"You look great," he remembers to say, a bit late, blinking when she pulls away.

"You too." And Klaridy smiles harder, roses tinting her cheeks. "Do you want to go outside?" she asks, gesturing to the windows.

Keefe shakes his head and takes her hand, leading her to one of the corners of the dance floor. He doesn't know quite why he's choosing this spot. But he can see Fitz, now, standing with a group of his friends. He looks like he's paying attention to them.

When Klaridy puts her hand on Keefe's shoulder, he takes it a step further.

"You really do look gorgeous tonight," he says, eyes flicking down at her lips. 

She laughs. "Come on, Keefe. What are you waiting for?"

So he kisses her, shadowed at the edges of the room. No one is looking at them, he's sure. But just to check, he opens his eyes as he pulls away. Without meaning to, his gaze is drawn to wherever Fitz had been standing last. 

From across the room, Fitz catches his eyes, then looks away. Laughs at someone else's joke, loud and painful.

Keefe doesn't know why his heart is squeezing so tight. He looks back down at Klaridy.

"Never mind. You're right. Let's go outside."

Later, Della asks him and Fitz how the dance went.

"Oh, it was great. Fun!" Keefe says, and it's only half a lie, which is honestly pretty good.

Fitz just nods, says, "It was fine." 

"Aw, that's great." Della smiles at them both, then leaves them in the fading kitchen light.

They both poke at their midnight sandwiches listlessly. Keefe is too busy sneaking looks at Fitz out of the corner of his eye to really care about food, and that is devastating in its own way. 

After too long a silence, Fitz begins to stab his plate with his fork. "So, where'd you go?" 

"What?"

"Like, where were you? The whole time?"

Keefe looks at him, incredulous. "Are you upset I left?"

"It's just—" Fitz falters, a break from the cool expression he'd been wearing. "It's just, we planned to go together? And then you... left?"

The old simmer begins to bubble again, deep in Keefe's gut. "Well, I mean, you really didn't wanna talk to me."

"What?" Fitz has the audacity to look confused.

"Dude! You kept ignoring me!"

"No, you left. With, um..."

"Klaridy. Her name's Klaridy."

Fitz grimaces. "Yeah."

"I only started talking to her because you weren't paying attention to me!" And okay, fine, he sounds bratty and jealous and also kind of possessive, but Keefe was always pretty bad at having a filter.

"Wait. No way." Fitz smiles, but it's not friendly. "That can't be why you ditched me—"

"It's not like you were alone for very long!" Keefe thinks of the crowd that had instantly surrounded Fitz, the longing stares that followed him practically everywhere, practically all the time.

"And also, like, you definitely did more than talking, so that—"

Keefe gives his own unfriendly laugh. "You can't be serious."

His mind flashes—sleepovers and smooth lips—and he thinks, for the millionth time, of how insistently Fitz had denied everything, moved on without a backwards glance.

"I'm just saying!"

"Whatever. Sorry you're jealous or whatever," Keefe mutters. And then, when Fitz doesn't take the bait, "If you wanted me to hang out with you so bad, maybe you could've like, talked to me at all? What, was I supposed to monologue for the both of us the entire time?"

Fitz pushes his plate away from him, his fork clattering loudly. "I'm sorry, okay? I was nervous."

"For what?"

Fitz's face looks frighteningly familiar, and Keefe instantly remembers from when, pulse racing at the thought of that night. "Because! I was gonna tell you—"

"All done?" Della calls, walking in. She stops, looking at both of their mostly full plates and stormy expressions, and begins to back out. "Oh. That's okay! Just clean up when you're done."

Fitz's face goes back to normal, every clue in his eyes wiped neatly away. Frustration washes over Keefe, a sharp bolt of loss.

"I'm not hungry," Fitz says, and all but runs out of the room. 

Keefe shakes his head, helpless at Della's questioning look, and begins to collect their plates.

I was gonna tell you—

iii. fifteen

"It's Sophie's birthday. In a couple weeks."

Can you draw a portrait of me and Sophie?

Keefe looks at Fitz, ears ringing. He doesn't know what to say, still trying to process Fitz's request, not having heard any of the explanation that'd come after. "Um."

"I just want to... do something nice. You know?" 

You couldn't possibly object. I mean, we're in a relationship. 'We' as in Sophie and I, not you obviously! Also, we're probably in love, even though we just starting dating, because we're impossibly perfect people. You'd never know what that's like.

"Right, right." Keefe's mouth is completely dry. He might die, honestly, of dehydration.

"So... could you?" 

We spend all our time together, and barely think about you! Who are you, even? Just a great friend! You care about us, but only, like, a normal amount. Because anything more would be super weird. 

Keefe can't wrap his mind around what he's agreeing to. Words are deeply failing him. He repeats, "Um." And then, bravely, "A... portrait?"

"Is that a yes?" Fitz's eyes brighten with hope and a staggering amount of relief.

So, thanks! In advance! Because of course you'd do anything we asked! 

Keefe nods, hating himself. "Sure, no problem."

This one's on him. He could've just said no. 

The problem is, Keefe is really bad at saying no to Fitz. Even when he does, the regret is immediate.

Especially because he finds his gaze drifting to Fitz more and more these days, which is impressive, because the bar had been pretty high from the beginning. It's dangerous, the way his heart flips in his chest sometimes. There's so much else happening. Sophie is happening, and Keefe keeps trying to step away for her sake, thinking that if anyone, she certainly deserves the happiness.

But without thinking, he always steps back closer. There is an unseen magnetic pull out there, with the sole purpose of tormenting Keefe.

So, yes, of course Keefe could've just said no. Let the distance grow, maybe have a clean break. But he craves every scrap of Fitz, takes it all in, even as the offerings begin to dig into his heart. Sharp corners and rough edges, unwanted just like him. 

And now he can't imagine turning his head to any of it, not when desperation roars violent in his chest.

The portrait comes together beautifully. Fitz had already projected the memory onto a sheet of paper, but Keefe transforms it into brushstrokes and pencil smudges, turns the sky into a dream. This is what he's good at.

But still. Was there no one else? No one else, in all of the Lost Cities, who could draw half-decently? Keefe doesn't understand why Fitz came to him.

Secretly, he hopes it's for the same reason Keefe always goes to Fitz. An inexplicable urge, a helpless draw to each other, fated red string... or something like that. 

Keefe blends together the perfect shade of teal, polishes in the tan he knows so well, and tells himself he needs to stop.

He goes to Fitz's house to drop the portrait off, tapping his fingers nervously against the wall as Fitz studies them. 

"Wow. Wow."

"Are they good?"

"They're incredible, Keefe. Wow." 

Fitz's vocabulary has been sharply reduced, and it makes Keefe smile, his chest squeeze tight. "Okay. Um, I'm glad."

"No, really." Fitz steps closer, and he probably doesn't even notice, but Keefe does. Of course he does. "Thank you so much."

Keefe can't meet Fitz's eyes, can't help how his gaze is stuck on that tight shirt, can't focus on anything but those spare inches between their chests. He doesn't know why his overactive imagination took now to flare up, but it has to stop. He's sweating. 

In an attempt to sound normal, he says, "No problem," but his voice is too high, obviously breathless.

"Seriously, what can I do to repay you?" When Keefe doesn't reply, caught silent, Fitz laughs lightly. "Like, other than actual payment. Which I'll also do. Obviously."

Keefe doesn't make a sound. He's barely holding himself still as it is. The heat rushing through his limbs is too much, flooding out every reasonable thought. If he let himself do what he wanted right now—

—warm sheets, silent sighs, heavy lips—

Well. That would ruin everything. So he holds the dam, impossibly tense but gratefully still.

Fitz is still there, though. Hasn't moved an inch away, maybe even got closer. Keefe doesn't know what to do.

"Um, Keefe? Are you good?"

Oh god. He needs to say something. What does he say? He tries for easy, ends up strained. "Yeah. Of course." 

What is he even agreeing to?

Fitz's brows furrow. Keefe watches, dread sinking into his stomach but unable to stop it as Fitz finally notices his trapped stare, his fiery red ears. Keefe has this horrible syndrome where he wears his heart on his sleeve, and Fitz is often too observant for his own good. 

A soft puff of realization, widened eyes, and they both become quiet. Keefe feels sick. The stillness intensifies.

Fitz hasn't stopped holding the portrait of him and Sophie, but he doesn't seem to realize, just breathes, "Keefe."

Is it a warning, or another request? Step away, or come closer? Keefe doesn't know. He's too scared to figure out. 

The spell breaks when someone knocks on the door, Biana not even pausing before barging in. "Guys! Please come with me to Atlantis! I forgot to get something for Sophie's birthday!"

Immediately, Fitz jerks a few steps back, not even registering Biana's confused glance. He doesn't stop looking at Keefe, but his stare has twisted into something like horror. Keefe is learning to relate to the monsters in every story he's read.

Biana rattles a long list of shops they have to visit, but neither of them are paying much attention to her, looking at each other like hunted animals. Just before Keefe's about to scream, or implode, or run out the room, he feels Fitz's voice in his head, a smooth, rich presence. 

Let's forget that, okay? Please. 

He nods, sharp, and then turns away. They've played this game before. He already knows how Fitz's face will rearrange itself, perfectly normal once again. 

"Sure, Biana, we'll come. How'd you know I'd be here?"

Biana squeezes her arms tight around him, grinning brightly. "You're always here."

iv. sixteen

In the library, studying for Foxfire midterms, Keefe notices everything.

He notices how Sophie and Fitz sit on opposite ends of the table, Keefe right in the middle. He notices how Fitz doesn't look up once from his books, laser-focused even as everyone else makes jokes. He notices how everyone slowly stands up and leaves, how as Sophie says her goodbyes, Fitz is silent. 

When it's just them two left at the table, Keefe and Fitz, Keefe scooches closer to Fitz and leans in, curiosity blazing. "So, what happened?"

He doesn't have to specify, because Fitz instantly tenses. He looks up, and Keefe is surprised to find that even the Golden Boy can have intense eyebags. "Nothing."

"Yeah, right," Keefe scoffs. When Fitz stays quiet, he pauses. "Sorry."

Fitz shakes his head, looks up at him. "No, I... We haven't really told anyone. But me and Sophie broke up."

There's an obvious remark to be made there, about how they're not hiding it very well. Keefe bites his tongue, reminds himself that this is the first time in maybe years Fitz has opened up to him, reminds himself to be normal and calm and not fuck it up. "Wow. Um, sorry about that. Are you upset?" 

It's a dumb question. Obviously. But Keefe has to ask, needs Fitz to say it aloud, for some reason he doesn't yet know.

Fitz bites his lip, his face switching between emotions so fast that Keefe can't catch them all. He opens his mouth, pausing hard before saying anything.

Keefe's fingers curl into his palm. He's expectant, dizzily hopeful for no reason. Always, under his skin, beats a secret wish: No. Not upset. I was wrong. It was never her, it was—

It's too much to even fantasize about. Without realizing, Keefe's breath catches, a sharp inhale. Fitz's gaze bolts to his throat, the nervous jump that Keefe immediately tries to pass off as casual, but suddenly his eyes are wide, his cheeks burning, and he knows everything he's feeling is plainly written on his face. Again.

Fear flashes in Fitz's eyes, his mouth closes. Whatever he'd been about to say, he changes his mind. His new answer is more acceptable. "Yeah. Of course I'm upset."

Immediately, Fitz looks back down at his books. Keefe tries to follow his lead, tries to chase the letters across the page and synthesize them into a thesis, but he can't. The mood is all wrong, the air between them thick with dissatisfaction. 

"Hey, Fitz?"

"What?"

He shouldn't say anything. He should keep his head down. But Keefe can't help the bitterness creeping up his throat, can't stop it from leaking out the corners of his lips. "You're upset about her. But what about me?"

Keefe sees it. The flicker of understanding that passes over Fitz's face, in the shape of raised brows and parted lips and dreading eyes. It's wiped away quickly, but not too quick that Keefe had imagined it. All at once, he's sure. Fitz knows. 

But he's playing dumb, already looking at Keefe with a confused tilt to his head. "What do you mean?"

Keefe's heart is beginning to pound, his grip turning slippery. He studies Fitz intently, waiting for even the tiniest flinch. "Did you ever care about me? About what happened with us?"

"We never dated, Keefe." Fitz laughs, then, and it's infuriating.

Keefe saw it. He'd finally caught the truth, plain as day on Fitz's face, after years and years of searching. Just one crack in that flawless facade, and he had the proof he needed. 

He hadn't been crazy. All those nights Keefe stayed awake, wondering if he was overthinking, deciding he was reading too much into it. All those times he dismissed Fitz's dark stares and long touches and innocuous questions. When he replayed that very first kiss, and all the almosts after that—

For so long, Keefe had thought maybe he was gripping too tightly to a dream, something that would dissolve between his fingers. But there was something, had been since that first night. And Fitz knew it.

And Keefe was so tired of pretending.

"No, but you kissed me." Immediately, Fitz begins to look around them. The library is empty, but not that empty. Anger flares inside Keefe, and he continues, not even bothering to keep quiet, "I know you feel it, okay? All those weird moments. You can't keep ignoring it! It's just shitty, you know that, right?"

"What?" Fitz asks, and then, "Can we please do this outside? Or, like, not at all?"

"No!" Keefe says. Or, screams. Loud enough that they get a few sharp glares and a librarian starts to walk over. He looks at her, panicked. "Okay, shit, fine. Let's go. But we are doing this."

Fitz sets his jaw and begins to pack up his books. 

Keefe is growing tired of Everglen. His home away from home, the place of his fondest memories. Where every time he leaves his heart a little too unguarded, Fitz Vacker accidentally shreds it to pieces.

But of course, they end up at Everglen.

They are at an unease truce of peace. Not a word spoken as they left the library, nothing said as they walked up to Fitz's room. Keefe is terrified that if he looks at Fitz, the words in his throat will melt away, so he focuses on his impossibly shiny shoes and this impossibly shiny floor.

The moment Fitz's books hit the ground of his room, though, the truce breaks.

"What the fuck, Keefe?" comes simultaneous with, "God, I'm just sick of this!" They're even wearing matching expressions of outrage, with an undertone of heartbreak, which is sort of funny and mostly terrible.

Rolling his eyes, Fitz gestures. "You first, I guess."

No one has ever infuriated Keefe the way Fitz does so easily. He's practically seething. "Let's get this straight. You kissed me. You kissed me."

"Is this a competition or something? That was three years ago!"

"Okay, and?" 

"You can't still be upset! Who cares!"

"Don't lie to me. You still think about it." Fitz hesitates, brow furrowing, and Keefe pounces. "See! You do! It wasn't nothing."

"Okay, wait. I never," Fitz whispers, cutting, "said nothing. I never said that."

Keefe pauses, then plows on. "Well, you still proved your point. Pretty well."

"What do you mean?"

"We never talked about it again! You acted like it never happened, and—"

"I'm sorry I don't want to discuss a single kiss for the rest of my life—"

"No, see, there!" Keefe stabs a finger at Fitz's chest, and it's melodramatic but it works. Fitz instantly stills. "You can't dismiss it as 'a single kiss' when you know it's more than that!"

"What are you even talking about?"

"Don't you remember? Any of those moments?" 

"Like what?" 

Keefe searches for how to explain the desperate certainty consuming him, comes up scrambling. "You got weird when I kissed girls! You got weird when I looked at you too long—"

"I did not—"

"Really? Are you really denying it right now?"

"There's nothing to deny!"

"Fuck!" Keefe explodes, twisting his hands into his hair and groaning back against the door. "Fuck, fuck, fuck! Fuck you!" 

He's so tired. Sick of pretending their pulses don't race to match each other, that the space between them isn't charged with past tension. He knows Fitz knows, and he's beginning to think Fitz will never accept it anyway.

Fitz watches his meltdown with a single raised eyebrow. "What do you want from me, Keefe?"

"To tell the truth! For once in your fucking life, Fitz, please." Keefe's voice breaks apart the moment he gets to Fitz's name, helpless.

For a flashing second, Fitz's eyes soften, Keefe's hope knocking him silent. The next moment, the walls are back up.

"I am," Fitz lies, and it's just so unfairly easy for him. Keefe feels like his heart is burning to ash, and Fitz is lying like he's made of stone. 

Keefe can't swallow, can hardly breathe as the realization sets in. It's no use. There was never a point to any of it.

"Okay," he says, strangled. "I guess that's that."

Fitz shrugs. Doesn't even bother with a reply.

Just before Keefe pulls the door close behind him, he leans back in. Studies Fitz. "Is it really that scary to show that you cared about me?"

Fitz looks away.

v. seventeen

Fitz is having a Winnowing Gala.

Keefe had been invited. Definitely not Fitz's decision, but Biana must've been desperate for company. Keefe had felt guilty declining, but not that guilty.

Fitz wanted to be surrounded by beautiful girls? He wanted to dance and laugh and drink with them all night? He wanted to eventually get married, loving wife eternally by his side?

Fine. Good for him. Keefe really didn't care. 

He sits in his house, his expansive, icy, empty house, and thinks about how much he really didn't care. 

"Keefe."

Keefe isn't new to dreaming Fitz's voice, but he hasn't done it in a while, and he's sort of disappointed by the relapse. So much for not caring. 

"Keefe."

Keefe's eyes snap open. He's pretty sure he hadn't dreamed that.

Is he being hunted?

In the dark, something touches his shoulder, and he instinctively jerks away. With a yelp, he rolls off the edge—is he sleeping on the couch?—and finds himself tangled in blankets on the hard, sobering floor.

"Ow!" Immediately, he tries to get himself back upright, fumbling in the dark. "Wait! Stop! What's happening?"

"Keefe?" A shadow moves closer. "Are you okay?"

Keefe squints, trying to adjust to the lighting. "Fitz?"

"Yes. Hi." Fitz offers a small, embarrassed smile. 

Keefe leans against the foot of the couch heavily, repeats, "What's happening?" 

Why was Fitz here? In Candleshade, of all places? When they hadn't been alone together since... Well. Oh, god, was the Lost Cities getting attacked? Was this a global emergency? There was no other explanation. 

"Fitz. Oh no, nonono," he says, a pit opening up in his stomach. "Is everyone safe?"

"What?" 

"Are they? Tell me!" Keefe thinks about his father, Sophie, Biana, and begins to panic.

"Yes? Of course? Keefe, are you okay?"

"What? Yes." Keefe frowns. What was happening? "I don't understand."

Fitz sighs, making his way to sit beside Keefe, still on the floor. He keeps a careful distance between them, but it's still the closest they've been to each other in months. Keefe's blood rushes in his ears, finding old habits hard to break. 

"Can we talk?"

Keefe vividly remembers the last time they talked. It still leaves a curdling taste in his mouth. "Are you sure?"

"Please."

He studies Fitz, taking note of the earnestness written on his face. Keefe thought maybe he'd killed all his hope, but unbidden, it rises within him again, loosens the tension in his shoulders. "Okay."

Fitz sags, maybe in relief. "Thank you."

Keefe's gaze travels to Fitz's clothes: heavily embroidered, ornate jewelry, rich fabric. "But, wait," he finally remembers, "Your Winnowing Gala?"

"Oh. Yeah." Fitz winces. "I left."

"Why?"

"I had to talk to you."

The hope grows stronger. Really, where was it all coming from? Keefe whispers, "Okay."

For a long moment, Fitz simply looks at Keefe, his eyes dark and shiny. "You may not realize, but I have this issue with the truth. It's sort of hard." Keefe scoffs out a laugh as Fitz continues, "I think I would be okay lying my entire life. About everything. I would stay at my Winnowing Gala. I'd probably pick a girl, and she'd be really pretty. And then we'd, like--"

His mouth twists, like he doesn't even want to say it. Keefe shifts closer, gently presses their shoulders together. "Get married? Have a million babies?"

"Stop it," Fitz groans, and now he's trying to hide a smile. "Let me finish."

"Okay, okay. Go ahead."

"I'm just saying. I would do all of that. Even if I didn't want it, I would pretend to be in love with that life. I'd probably learn to like it, eventually. That's always been my plan. Pretend. Lie." 

Keefe's not sure when he'd taken Fitz's hand, but he squeezes it now, warm and firm. "Fitz... that's so intensely depressing."

Fitz doesn't react, just fixes Keefe with an accusing look. "But you sort of messed everything up."

"Right, of course. How?"

"Like, I was at the Gala, just an hour ago. And I was looking at all these different futures. And I was preparing myself, thinking about the lies I would tell, for the rest of my life, and then I realized the biggest lie of all would center you. And I would never escape it." Fitz sounds like he's choking, like he can't get the words out fast enough. "I can shove out all my other thoughts, but I can't ignore you."

"You've done a pretty good job," Keefe says lightly, thinking about turned heads and abandoned rooms and missed calls. 

"No. Because I think about you all the time. All the time." Fitz laughs wetly, a sound torn from his throat. "You have no idea. I'm so sorry, Keefe. I wish I told you sooner. All those times, I had so many chances--"

"Kiss me."

Fitz stops, his breath catching, lips still parted with apologies. "What?"

Keefe finds that he doesn't care about their past, their sorries, their many mistakes. He doesn't care about anything but Fitz, his soft breath so close, his hair curling in the moonlight, his emotions finally, finally, washing freely over his face. 

"Please. Kiss me."

So Fitz does.

vi. everything after

Keefe takes it back. He's not tired of Everglen. Though, Everglen might be tired of him, now that he's practically moved in. Also, Fitz has a tendency to press him up against walls and windows and doors, and Keefe thinks if he were a house, he wouldn't be too fond of that.