tw for minor self-harm. This is canon divergent, and Keefe is OOC. This is kind of a character study?
Eyes are the windows to the soul, but it's never been like that for Keefe.
He doesn't understand how they could convey so much. A furrow of the brow, a twitch of the eyebrows. They all say so much more. Sure, add downcast eyes to that, and the meaning changes .
But all in all, he doesn't understand how, just by looking into someone's eyes, he can tell what they're feeling. He doesn't understand how, just by looking into his mother's eyes, he could ever possibly know what she is feeling.
Before his ability develops, he has no idea what his mother feels. Sometimes, she frowns, and sometimes, she smiles. Sometimes, she tilts her head to the side, and sometimes, her chin tilts up. But it's never real . It never seems real. Because Keefe could do just that, look like the exact image of her, and that wouldn't be how he's feeling.
After his ability develops, he doesn't think he knows her any better. He doesn't know his father any better.
His father used to rage, his eyebrows sloping down in a grotesque way, his eyes wide, his movements stiff. Every part of him, every atom, would spell anger . Now, Keefe feels that anger. It comes at him in spikes, furious spikes that make him want to scream and rage like his father does. Then, his father lets go of his wrist, and Keefe is back to feeling nothing.
His mother, on the other hand, is different. She puts a hand on his shoulder, often, and steers him. He feels what she feels, but it's never real. It doesn't feel real.
Someone explains to him, along the way. "There are side effects to being an Empath. It can be overwhelming, and you can become…numb."
They say that like it's a bad thing, but Keefe looks at elves, and thinks, Isn't that what we already are?
He meets Fitz. Fitz is this sort of golden boy. He's perfect in every way, and he's everything Keefe expected a Vacker to be.
Alden tells Fitz to spend more time with Keefe. He thinks Keefe doesn't know, but Keefe does.
For Keefe, emotions aren't in someone's eyes. They're in that person's touch. They're in the contact of skin against skin, and somewhere along the way, Keefe becomes touch-starved.
He doesn't know if it's the emotions he starves for, or the touch itself, or both, but he does know that when he's in a crowd, he doesn't mind being bumped into. He doesn't mind girls brushing their hands against his. He doesn't mind their warmth, and he doesn't mind the flood of emotions .
His mother's hands are always cold, and she never feels.
His father's hands are gloved, and he never feels the right things.
Biana hugs him a few months into knowing him. He sinks into it, and when she teases him a few moments later about it, he just smirks ( it's easy to do, it's what he does when he doesn't know how to react or what he should be thinking, what he should be feeling ) and makes a stupid wisecrack.
He likes being an Empath. The first time he felt something, he thought it was from himself. It surprised him, but now that he does know all of these feelings belong to other people, he can still pretend that they're his.
He can pretend that the last time he felt truly happy was a few moments ago ( and not a few years ago ). He can pretend the last time he cried was a few days ago ( and not when he was five ).
This river of feeling that washes over him is refreshing. He's not numb ( but he is ).
Sophie comes to the Lost Cities, and god , her emotions are so loud. They radiate around her. They're overwhelming, and that's why Keefe loves them.
He doesn't have to be touching her to know what she's feeling ( to feel ). He just has to be close, and that's easy.
She's warm and earnest. She's not his mother.
She brings along friends (and a war), and Keefe thinks he could cry. (He always could, but that's because he mastered the art of forcing himself to do so years ago.)
She's mysterious. She's different.
Her eyes are brown, and maybe they're clearer than blue ones.
She caused a splash, and she's keeping a secret.
She's so different from elves. Elves are cold or sheltered or insensitive or all of the above. Sophie is nervous, curious, and innocent.
He can tell she doesn't know what to think of him, and it's the open way that she feels (because Keefe's world is all about feeling) that intrigues him.
Biana's jealous, but he pretends he doesn't notice because he has no idea how to react to that, no matter how many possible reactions he goes through in his mind.
Sophie goes missing.
She's gone, and suddenly, his world is bland. He's thrown back to reality, to his house where his father is always dissatisfied or annoyed or angry and his mother is still nothing .
He curls up on his bed and wonders what Fitz is doing. He wonders how Biana is dealing with this. He wonders what Dex and Marella are thinking.
He realizes, they're probably crying.
So he cries, too, and he likes it. He likes the taste of salty tears, the way he can't contain his sobs, the edge of hysteria.
He likes that once he starts, it's hard to stop.
It's not a dam breaking. It's not feeling returning to him.
It's just…a glimpse.
For once, he's not looking at this through someone else.
It's refreshing.
His mother finds him, and it all disappears.
After they find Sophie, and he thinks Oh, she's Telepath , he's relieved. It doesn't make him want to smile or laugh, but it makes him feel a bit better.
She sneaks back into his life, timid but bold. And she feels enough for the two of them.
There's so much happiness and relief around her room. Biana feels like a weight has been lifted off her. Fitz is in awe, a bit. Grady and Edaline are overjoyed.
It's a bit nice, feeling this happiness from them.
He used to be able to fool himself into thinking, even on a subconscious level, that this happiness was his. Now, he can't, but it's okay because he can still pretend.
Alden feels so, so, so guilty .
He finds out his father is part of the Neverseen.
He thinks he reacts accordingly.
Maybe some part of his response was real.
It's not his father. It's his mother.
He thinks, of course .
How could he ever think otherwise?
Fitz and Sophie and Biana and even Dex tell him he's nothing like her.
They think they're seeing through his cracks. In reality, it's all calculated.
They still send him looks of pity.
They're exiled, and he acts like he's broken when he's in the tent with Sophie.
He doesn't know why. It's probably because around Sophie, he can pretend he's a person , underneath all this.
Sophie looks like she's starting to finally understand him, but oh, no, you're not even close .
It's hard. It's hard that he has to think up a way to react to something. Sometimes, he doesn't have enough time, and he's a mess trying to find out which way is best.
The others think it's his façade slipping for a second. They might be right, but really, what's hiding behind it is actually that there's absolutely nothing to hide.
He's a shell of a person.
Tam annoys him. Tam irritates him. Tam gets under his skin.
Keefe thinks, I like this , and proceeds to do the same to the other boy.
He establishes some sort of rivalry with Bangs Boy, complete with nicknames and taunts. It's kind of fun. Tam can provoke him, really provoke him . He's the first person Keefe has met since Sophie that can make him feel something.
But these feelings that come with Tam are only ever really superficial; shallow. At the end of the day, this thing with Tam is only skin deep.
Biana thinks Keefe is in love with Sophie. Sophie suspects, but definitely not at a conscious level.
Fitz eyes him warily.
Keefe lets them all believe.
Vespera makes an appearance.
Keefe is…fascinated with her.
She's what he'll become one day. Maybe minus the evil part.
He's an Empath. He's a master of manipulating people. He chooses to manipulate what they think of him. They'll never know any better.
Oralie feels too much. Vespera doesn't feel enough. Keefe is…getting there.
His father feels all the wrong things. His mother is empty. Keefe takes more after his mother than he takes after his father.
Fitz feels all the right things. Biana does, too, but they're a different kind of right. Linh's feelings are subdued, but they're there. Tam is only ever grudgingly happy, but he still feels intensely . Dex uses his head more than he uses his heart. His heart is still there, though. Sophie feels so much. She feels more than enough for the both of them.
It's a while until he's alone with Vespera. She tilts her head to the side, and it's like looking into a mirror.
Her eyes are not windows. They're only reflections.
"You're like me," she says. Her fingertips trail along his wrist.
Eerily, she's like his mother, but worse: completely devoid of emotion.
He feels a spark of something ( spite? ) and tells her, "I'm not that far gone yet."
For him, feelings aren't told through people's eyes. It's in their collarbone, their chest, their pulse on the inside of their neck.
When Sophie enhances him, he feels like he can find out a person's whole life story just by tracing the inside of their wrist.
Sophie tells him again that he's not his mother. Her face is close to his, and he wonders if she'll kiss him.
The same day, he picks a fight with Tam just for the thrill of it. Tam almost says Keefe is just like his father. Keefe sees the moment Tam stops, falters, and regrets it.
It doesn't matter. It doesn't hurt, and it doesn't burn.
"Humor is your coping mechanism," people tell him. He grits his teeth like he didn't mean for them to figure it out, when in reality, that's just part of the Keefe Sencen persona he meant for them to see.
They're just scratching the surface.
But it's not like there's much beneath it that's not just hollow space.
"There are side effects to being an Empath. It can be overwhelming, and you can become…numb," someone told him long ago. He wants to laugh because he's been there for years.
He likes laughing because it's something he can't control. He can't calculate how he laughs, when he laughs. He can only suppress it.
Since he likes laughing, he likes joking. And he smirks a lot, because it fits with Keefe Sencen.
The thing with Tam becomes complicated.
He likes that.
Sophie goes into his mind a few times. She never figures it out, because Keefe was trained by his mother on how to trick Telepaths.
She's talented, but raw talent isn't enough for her to get past the layers.
He sees his mother. She's not that different from before.
Her betrayal was like a rug being pulled out from under him. He didn't see it coming.
He cried in front of Sophie when he found out, but they weren't big fat tears, so he didn't like it. He wonders how his mother could have become this when she wasn't even an Empath.
He's always felt detached from reality. Tam can bring him back sometimes. So can Sophie. Fitz has come close twice. Biana yanks him back when he saw the scars from what Vespera had done to her.
"Your mother's a psychopath," Dex mutters shakily during one of the confrontations with the Neverseen.
He plasters on a smirk that wobbles a bit and agrees, instead of saying, "Then what am I?"
Oralie's scared of him. It's buried deep inside her. She's in denial. But she can't fool Keefe.
His interest is peaked.
Maybe she's scared because his emotions are so dull. Maybe she's scared because they aren't there at all.
She and Keefe polar opposites in that sense. She feels so much, and that's how Keefe makes the connection between her and Sophie.
Sophie and Oralie are related. They have to be.
He was right.
He can fool most Empaths. He picked that up from his mother.
The Neverseen has killed more people. Keefe acts more quiet because he feels like he should be more subdued, like Linh.
He knows Sophie cried when she found out, and he wonders how she could feel so much for people she didn't even know.
Fitz is stiff. He's angry and guilty.
Again, Keefe wonders how they could feel such empathy .
He wants to laugh, then, because an Empath that feels no real empathy is truly ironic.
They were foolish again and rushed into another one of the Neverseen's traps. Sophie is devastated. Keefe is a bit disappointed, but he'll get over it.
His mother asks him to join her. He refuses with a bitterness and rawness that's not real.
He doesn't want to join her, but he's not that passionate about it.
Later, when his mother's gone, Vespera slinks up to them. Everyone glares at her with such disgust. Keefe only stares at her blankly because this is what I'll become someday .
She stares at him. They lock eyes.
Why do people call eyes the window to the soul? He sees… nothing.
She chuckles, then leaves. Sophie and Tam and Biana and Dex and Linh and Fitz are confused. Keefe pretends he is too.
They all have a sleepover. He wasn't there for the first one because he was busy playing martyr/hero/something he'll never be.
They end up having some sort of cuddle pile while watching a human movie, and
the
SHEER
amount
of
emotions -
this
SENSATION -
is more overwhelming than the day he met Sophie. Than the first time she Enhanced him.
He loves it at first, but then suddenly it's all too much. It's a confused jumble, and he can't tell where it all starts and where it all ends.
His expression goes blank. For once, he can't school it into something .
He feels like stone.
They don't notice. They never do.
Scratch that. Tam does.
Sophie and Fitz get together. Keefe gets sent pitying glances. If he was more oblivious, he wouldn't know why.
It's been a few years since Sophie came and upturned everything. He's eighteen, now, and he's used to her feelings. He doesn't think he can live without them. He's like a leech because he feeds off of it all, except he's not a leech because he doesn't steal anything from her.
It doesn't hurt anyone.
"I wonder how someone like your mother," Biana whispers to him one afternoon, "and someone like your father…can have someone like you."
He doesn't know what to say to that (what expression his face should make), so he cries instead, and tastes the salt he loves so much. She holds him, and for a second, he's not an Empath, and he's not his mother's son.
It ends all too quickly. He's back to being empty.
Vespera comes to his room one night. She takes his wrist and presses it to her collarbone.
Feel , she's saying.
There's nothing. It's strange being around her because everyone else always feels. But she is as nothing as a stone, as his lamp beside his bed.
Then, because he has nothing else to do, he does the same to her. He tells her to feel.
Slowly, she smiles.
"I can't remember what it's like," she whispers, and he knows what she's talking about. She disappears after that, leaving his window open. Wind blows in and his curtains billow out.
His hatred for her only runs skin-deep. After all, they're the same, aren't they?
Tam's voice is shaky. I saw you that night . You were like a statue. You looked dead inside .
Keefe lets his mask drop. "I've always been dead inside."
Tam's eyes widen.
Except none of that happens because Tam never brings it up.
He's twenty, and he imagines what life would be like if he had chosen to be neutral in this war. Deep inside, he's closest to neutral. Still, he likes the side he chose. He likes the good side.
It's nice. Sophie and Tam are there. He's never really actually cared for people, but they're the closest to caring he's ever gotten. Biana, too, maybe. His few months with the Neverseen were so dull. It hurt his head.
Besides, it's not like the Council would have allowed him to be anything other than firmly against his mother. Because of the big role his mother played and still plays in all this, he had to choose.
He thinks he made the best choice.
Fintan is scared of him. Maybe Vespera dropped a few hints or maybe his mother said something, but when Keefe punches the pyrokinetic, he feels fear .
Keefe salutes him sarcastically. Fintan's hands burst into flames. Keefe can't help but stare at the leaping sparks, mesmerized.
Biana tells him she used to like him as something other than a brother.
"You're not lying when you say you're good-looking," she chuckles. It's been years since she's looked at him the way she now looks at Dex. She's reminiscing fondly about the days when everything was so much simpler. "You were funny. You were friends with Fitz, and you were friends with me. I was a hopeless romantic. But I thought I had a chance."
She's always been beautiful. There was a time when he wouldn't have minded kissing her.
Vespera is dead.
Guess there's only one of us left now .
There's a hole in his chest, and he feels lonelier than ever.
He's been kidnapped. An interesting turn of events.
Ruy carves symbols and runes into his skin and claims it's for a ritual.
Keefe doesn't care. He likes the sight of his blood, so he's fine with just watching it stream down his arms.
His mother observes them from afar.
Glimmer studies shadowflux.
It's just his luck that he's been chosen to be her subject.
In his dreams, Vespera comes. She's dressed in black that's sharp and blinding and so wrong . It makes her skin look whiter than ash, her bones jut out as if they were carved from stone (her cheeks are hollow), her lips seem like they're dipped in blood.
She laughs, and Keefe isn't sure if it actually is a laugh. It sounds more like birds cawing, like humans screaming, like nails against a chalkboard.
Then it tapers off to something lonely and desperate.
"When you're like me," her voice says in his mind - Telepath? - hollowly (like her face), "centuries pass in the blink of an eye. Every day is the same. It's all " - it comes out sounding like a sob - "the same."
He wakes up, and it takes a few moments to remember his nightmare. When he does, he shrugs. It's been a while since he could remember what he dreamt of while he slept.
"You're like me," his mother writes in a looping scrawl. It's so different from what Sophie says to him that he stares at the note for a while.
It smells a bit like smoke.
Ruy doesn't leave one night. He clenches his fists and accidentally cracks one of his knuckles. It doesn't reset correctly and he curses.
He doesn't look at Keefe as he talks.
Ruy was once in love with Brant. When Brant burnt his own hand off, courtesy of Grady, Ruy almost went on a rampage.
Now, Ruy has one goal in life, and that's to kill every single one of the Ruewens sweetly and slowly.
Keefe was once a boy of under fifteen. He met Sophie Foster, who was naive and almost innocent. His friends believed they could uproot the foundations of their world. Keefe followed them for the hell of it.
He's twenty, now, and his mother's grin is sharp as a knife as she begins her ritual.
She wants to turn him into some sort of monster.
Well, isn't he one already?
She's bleeding.
There's blood on his hands.
Her eyes are lit by the fire in Fintan's hands. Keefe thinks, maybe it's her eyes that are on fire.
He hears thunder.
Ruy is shaking. Keefe doesn't know why.
Somehow, Sophie's here. She Inflicting on the Neverseen members, and Ruy is the only one with the strength to glare at her. There is such hatred in his eyes. It burns hotter than Everblaze. He spits out words that are pure venom.
Sophie flinches.
Keefe feels it all.
He looks at Sophie, and there's a dull pain at the back of his head. Somewhere deep down, he hates her so much that he wants to wring her neck as she screams.
Then Ruy is knocked out, and it's gone. Sophie is in front of Keefe now. She's sobbing. Her hands cradle his head. She presses her forehead against his. She cries harder than Keefe did the day he thought she died.
She collapses into him, shuddering. Around them, Linh is brandishing spheres of water. Tam is panting angrily as shadows creep up his arms. Fitz is throwing his goblin throwing stars. Marella looks eerie. Fire dances around her body. Dex is...punching people.
Sophie's always been so strong, but she feels so delicate right now in his arms.
When she leans back, he pushes a strand of wet hair out of her eyes. It'd be easy to fall in love with her, some part of his mind registers.
"I thought you were gone," she mouths because she doesn't have the strength to say it. "I thought I had lost you."
Grief that is not his washes over him like a flood. It's overwhelming.
He missed this.
Tam hugs him once they're out.
"Awwww, I knew you cared," Keefe teases him. It touches some part of his heart. He doesn't know how he feels about it.
"We all do," is the response.
Keefe is taken aback because he could never care about them the way they care about him.
He hates himself so much for that.
There are bruises on Sophie's neck. Keefe doesn't need to ask to know who they're from.
Oralie is glad he's okay. At least, that's what she says. She doesn't believe it, and she doesn't know why. It confuses her.
He wants to laugh because he knows exactly why he makes her so uneasy.
In some alternate universe, he hates Councillor Alina with a passion. He's disgusted by her to the extent that he can't even speak of her.
He's stuck in the universe where he dislikes her so much she isn't even worth his time. He doesn't care about her one bit.
So when she offers him her "condolences" for what he went through, he decides to roll his eyes at her. It's a bit satisfying to see her look of outrage.
"Remember when Sophie and I used to date?" Fitz laughs. It's just the both of them. It hasn't been that way in a while. "We were just...so young. I thought we were destined to be together because we're Cognates."
Keefe tries to look faintly pained.
"I remember," he says in that joking, lilting tone. "You and Foster would stare at each other a lot. It was so mushy." He pats Fitz's head. "You have a lot to learn about dating, Fitzy boy. I have to say, taking her out on stare dates might have worked out first, but after a while...well, let me just say, if I were dating you, I would want to mix it up a little."
He might have gone a little overboard. Fitz shoots him a weird look.
Everyone's afraid to ask what happened at the Neverseen hideout. Even his father, who used to do whatever he pleased, tiptoes around him.
It's annoying.
Sophie feels so much.
tw: minor self-harm (very minor, but I'm putting this anyways)
The first time he digs his fingernails into the soft flesh of his arms, he's twenty-one. It's not enough to hurt. He looks at the small crescents left. They crisscross over the scars left by Ruy.
Five minutes later, there are crescents everywhere on his arms and legs and even hands.
They fade by the end of the day.
tw: okay, the warning is over
This time, it's not Sophie who says he's nothing like his mother. It's Tam who says he's nothing like his father.
Keefe is surprised by the tears in his eyes.
His father always feels the wrong things.
Biana believes in real, earth-shattering love.
How?
Sophie does too.
Dex believes in something like it.
He graduates from Foxfire. He realizes just how much he liked that school. He has nothing to do now except spend more time in his mind.
There are voices in his head. They're probably there to help him cope.
Linh asks what's wrong. He shrugs. He doesn't have the energy to act. She nods and leaves him alone.
He falls in love with her for just a second.
He knows he easily could have joined the Neverseen. He knows this is harder. This is both lonelier and not as lonely.
It's not for long, but he wonders why elves have to have such long life spans.
Whose war is this? He doesn't know anymore.
All he knows is that he doesn't know whether he wants it to end.
tw again
He comes to the conclusion that he's sadistic as he sees how far his nails can sink into his skin.
tw over
His mother never feels enough.
The day his mother is captured, defeated , she laughs hysterically. She cackles as she's dragged off in chains. Her hair is a mess. She's crying.
There's so much emotion pouring out of her. He nails rake the surface of the earth. She's screaming.
Her eyes lock onto Keefe's.
Her eyes are the same.
She's the same.
He was right.
Her eyes are cold fire.
She's covered in blood, there are dark circles under her eyes, and Keefe knows she will appear in his nightmares.
She's shaking and heaving and gagging. Her dress is in tatters. Her thick cloak is shredded to small rags.
Her laughing turns to giggling, then back to laughing. She looks insane . She looks mental . She's crazy.
She bares her teeth.
You lost , she seems to be saying. Everyone does their best to ignore her, even her ex-husband. Keefe is the only one looking at her.
Her eyes lock onto his again. The world stops. An almost human expression takes place on her face. Her eyes soften. They look blue again. They look baby blue. She looks innocent.
Her mouth parts. Blood comes out. She looks pitiful.
She looks like a mother, but she doesn't look like his mother.
She's almost vulnerable.
Her emotions hitch and change. They are indecipherable.
I'm sorry , she almost seems to be saying. They're both frozen. He thinks this is the first time they've really seen each other. He thinks this is the first time they've actually talked to each other.
The moment is delicate. It's like glass. It balances on a string.
It falls.
She's laughing. He wants to laugh with her. He wants to laugh until he cries, he wants to cry until he's sobbing, he wants to sob until he falls asleep, he wants to sleep until he's dead.
He wants to be free like she looks now. He wants to be untethered.
He wants to laugh because he's just like her.
She's dragged off. That's the last time he sees her.
It's been a decade since this war was started. That was the first time he could say he really truly felt something.
We did it , everyone's thinking.
They did it.
He goes to bed feeling exactly how he has for the past ten years.
He visits her room in Candleshade. He destroys it.
He wonders when he'll feel again. Maybe he'll feel again if he marries Sophie or if he kisses Tam.
He doesn't know.
All he knows is that when he looks in the mirror, he sees his mother.
People say eyes are the windows to the soul, but it's never been like that for Keefe.
He looks and only sees glass.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this! Sorry if the pacing is a bit off! This oneshot is actually supposed to be a bit confusing. It's definitely completely open to interpretation (except for Keefe's relationship with Vespera. Please don't take that the wrong way. Keefe is CHILD.) If there is anything else I should put a trigger warning for, please let me know!