Chapter Text
The walk felt longer than it should have.
Keith barely remembered leaving Whiterun. One second he was standing there, the next he was halfway across the plains, boots tearing through dry grass, breath coming a little too fast.
Jesper.
The name sat sharp in his chest.
Back home.
A family. A past. A life that didn’t involve cold nights, or dragons, or… him. Keith swallowed hard. Of course he’d go. Why wouldn’t he?
The cliff came into view slowly, rising out of the land like something waiting. Keith slowed as he approached, steps faltering just slightly. And then he saw it.
The air shimmered, thin, wavering, like heat over stone. A tear in the world. Through it, a house stood quiet and whole, sunlight catching on its windows.
Not Skyrim. Not here. Home.
Keith stopped a few steps away. Jesper wasn’t there. His chest dropped.
Too late.
He stared at the portal, something hollow opening up inside him, wide and sudden and—
No.
Keith’s jaw clenched.
No.
His gaze snapped away, dragging across the plains behind him. Whiterun stood in the distance, familiar. Solid. Safe. He remembered it all. The bickering. The arrests. The late nights with their friends, doing stupid shit. Everything they’d built… everything they’d survived.
Everything that had started to feel like theirs.
He exhaled slowly. If Jesper had gone through… Then that was it. That was the end of it. No more stealing and letting himself get arrested for fun. No more stupid comments just to get a rise out of him. No more—
Keith shut his eyes.
“…Idiot,” he muttered under his breath. Because the thought of that…of him gone, felt wrong in a way he couldn’t ignore anymore. Not just wrong. Unbearable. His throat tightened. Jesper hadn’t said goodbye. Not to Dave. Not to Kevin. Not to him. And that, more than anything, made something click into place.
Jesper wouldn’t just leave like that.
Not unless—
Keith’s eyes snapped back to the portal. Unless he thought it was easier. Unless he thought it didn’t matter. Unless he thought Keith didn’t—
“Damn it,” Keith breathed.
The words came out sharper than he expected. Because he did.
He did.
It wasn’t just habit, or convenience, or the way things had slowly shifted between them. It was…
Keith swallowed hard.
It was Jesper.
Always had been.
He stepped closer to the portal. Close enough now to see details in the wood of the house. The shape of the door. The way the light fell across the ground on the other side.
A life Jesper had lost. A life he could have back. Keith glanced over his shoulder one last time. The plains stretched wide behind him. Whiterun steady on the horizon. Everything familiar. Everything safe. Everything he’d have to leave behind. For how long? He didn’t know.
If he went through, there was no guarantee of anything. No way back. No plan. Just… Jesper.
Keith let out a slow breath.
“…Yeah,” he murmured.
That was enough. His expression hardened, certain.
Then he turned back to the portal and stepped through.
***