OKAY. I did disappear off the internet for a minute, but I'm back now (probably). There is Sophiana coming I promise, I just can't get the Biana characterization right. So you're getting another Keefitz fic, suck it up. (Lolz as if I get any of the characterization right, but my Biana is,,,,,,pathetic) After re-reading Carry On (Rainbow Rowell, would recommend,) my gay literature craving has reawoken, so here's this. It's short and kinda trashy but ask me if I care? (The answer is no.)

Fitz

The music is loud. (It's not even good music. It's his winnowing gala and he didn't even get to pick it.) It's the kind of uncomfortable loud that blasts make your ears ache for silence and it's the kind of music that makes Fitz want to hit something. This whole thing makes Fitz want to hit something, but his father said he should. (It was the kind of should that connotes "have to"). It makes him the kind of angry that makes the blood rush into his ears and makes him want to hit walls. He wants to smash something right now as he waltzes back and forth with Linh. She's second on his list and he's third on hers. Linh's a good dancer, better than Marella, who he danced with last. Her timing is good, her footing is good. (This is how he's been 'judging' all of the girls. Who has better footwork? Any girl who steps on his toes? Not wife material. He can't get himself to feel anything about any of them). She's one of the better dancers he's danced with, second to a blonde telepath who's high up on his list. His father loves her, and Fitz can see why. She's like Sophie Foster without the fractured innocence, without the hard skin you get from saving the world at 12, and 13, and 14, and on and on and on. Fitz forgot her name the second they stopped dancing.

"Would you marry me?" Linh asks into Fitz's ear, breaking Fitz from his thoughts. Fitz must've put on a weird face because Linh follows up with, "I mean, if everything worked out the right way, and both of us were presented with marriage, would you marry me?" He turns her in a spin, her skirt flares.

"Well I certainly wouldn't marry Marella," he says after a minute. Linh laughs, it's light and pretty sounding. (It's much better sounding than the dastardly music blaring overhead) "I guess I would. I've got nobody else to marry besides Marella, and she stepped on my toes," Linh laughs again, but her face darkens again.

"Not Sophie?" One step, two step, three step. Fitz can feel the eyes of the other girls on him. (He's been dancing with Linh a little too long, he's supposed to give everyone there a fair chance, but Fitz can't bring himself to care.) He glances over to the corner of the room where Sophie is sipping punch with Biana and Marella.

"My father would throw a conniption fit if I was a bad match. Vacker legacy and all that," Linh shakes her head.

"As if the Vacker legacy isn't in shambles right now," Fitz flinches. "Sorry," she doesn't mean it and both of them can tell. (They both know she's right, but Fitz can't bring himself to say so).

"Sophie and I weren't great as a couple. I wouldn't do it again," she gives him a sad smile.

"Why not?" He dips her, and a few pieces of her updo fall out.

"I dunno. I guess neither of us cared very much for each other," this earns Fitz an inquisitive look. "We cared about each other, but there wasn't much, feeling," Linh nods at this again as Fitz tucks hair behind her ears.

"I wonder why," she says, a lilt of sarcasm on her tongue. (She knows why. It's been unspoken, over the whole gala. Everybody Knows. He didn't have to say anything. He supposes that every single girl he dances with knows that he won't love them like that.) The only people who knows knows are Keefe, who he told when he was fourteen, and Sophie, who he felt deserved an explanation. It is very difficult to love boys when the love of your parents relies on your ability to love girls. Fitz hears the door open behind him, but he thinks nothing of it until Linh tilts her chin up in greetings to the person behind him. He glances over his shoulder to see Keefe sticking his head in the crack between the door and the wall. Keefe beckons him forward.

"Please excuse me," Fitz says to Linh. She smiles and nods.

"The offer still stands Fitz," she says as she lets go of him. "We're not so different. It could be beneficial," Fitz nods solemnly and then walks over to Keefe, who pulls him outside. Their pinky fingers link. He can feel the eyes of the girls on him, but they wouldn't call him out and dare to ruin their prospects with the (not so) golden boy.

Fitz tried not to think about how he felt about Keefe. For years. Years and years and years he spent in denial. If Fitz really thinks about it, he's had a crush on Keefe longer than he's known he's gay. He tries not to think about it as Keefe pulls him outside, not saying anything. He tries to not think about how Keefe is holding his hand and how Keefe can feel everything he is feeling. This thought earns him a look from Keefe.

"I can tell you're spiraling," he doesn't say anything else until they're deep in the Everglen yard. Pulling his hand away he leans against a tree as Fitz stands there uncomfortably. The music has faded by now, faint in the distance. Fitz stares at the ground, and then the sky. He listens to the birds and the crickets. Fitz sighs.

"I thought you weren't going to come," he says, the taste of bitterness on his tongue.

"I wasn't," Keefe replies, dragging his hand through his hair. Fitz shifts his balance, waiting for Keefe to go on. They stand there for another minute in silence. "You're just going to do this to yourself?" Keefe breathed.

"Do what?" Another look. Keefe bangs his head against the tree a few times, bark clings to his hair. Fitz picks it out as Keefe talks. "It wouldn't be fair. To you or to her,"

"Life's not fair Keefe,"

"Yeah, I know that. You don't think I know that?"

"I have to marry a girl and-"
"So you can have kids who'll be afraid to come out of the closet to you too?"

"You know what Keefe. I don't have time for this," Fitz turns to walk. He's almost out of hearing distance he hears Keefe shouting after him.

"Happily ever after for your children starts with a happily ever after for you Fitz!" Keefe runs to catch up to him. Something hitches in Fitz's throat.

"I'm not looking for forever, I'm looking for right now, and right now I need to go and pick a girl to marry,"

"I'm your right now! You're not there, you're here. You don't have to go back there,"

"Yeah, I do. The person I'm going to marry is in that room, they're not in the yard,"

"Me. I'm right here. Marry me!" Keefe yells, right in his face. Keefe takes both his hands. Fitz blinks. "Not like, right now. But I love you, and I have loved you since I met you basically. I will love you for this right now, and the next and the next. So marry me, five, ten, years into the future. Don't leave me for a girl who wants the title and not the boy. Fitzroy Aver-"

Fitz cuts him off by leaning into him. He drops Keefe's hands to put them on Keefe's face as their foreheads touch. And then their lips touch. And they're kissing, for seconds, minutes, Fitz loses track. They stop when the music is cut short. He hears the girls leaving in the wake of his absence.

"Guess you're stuck with me then," Keefe says.

"Guess so," they slink onto the ground. Fitz's fingers slide carelessly into Keefe's. "So what now?"

"Dunno. One right now at a time I guess," and they sit there.

For one right now, for two. Just two boys in the yard they spent their childhoods pillaging. Them against their right nows.

Anyways! It might be months until I post again, but I'll see you there ig. If you want me to write a ship for you I will, just pm me. (I'll write for something that isn't this fandom, but I will not write a hetero ship based on principle alone)
Yoodlez peeps!
- Abubble