a lesson in running away (the art of returning)

Dear [YOU KNOW WHO]: of being made from stone (and learning to let it crumble)

Dear Fitz,

This is not an apology.

Fuck. Fuck this. Fuck you.

...

Keefe opens the door too quickly, alight with an excitement he can't name, and Fitz jumps from his seat with a curse.

He comes to an immediate halt. "Fitz, why the fuck are you holding a knife?"

Fitz's hand clenches, flexes, and drops it. The polished dagger lands softly on the navy blue carpet, and when he looks at him, it's with confusion. Maybe a little relief.

"It's you."

"Yeah, it is. Who did you think it would be?"

Fitz shifts on his feet. He looks a little like he did when Keefe first came back; not unsure, not exactly angry, but colder. Distant, maybe. "I just wasn't expecting you." His face creases in fear for a split second, but Keefe doesn't think it's aimed at him.

"Hey," he says a little softer, and he takes a step closer. Fitz moves back, away from him, shoulders tensing. "What happened?"

His nostrils flare, but he doesn't say anything. He just gets colder, farther away.

Keefe wishes he could still feel. He'd give a lot to decipher the stony look on Fitz's face.

But he can't. So he sits down on the bed.

Fitz stays standing, but he takes a deep breath. And then he says, "What was it like in the human world?"

Keefe studies him for a second. "You've been there. More than I have, probably."

"Yeah, but as an outsider." Fitz is acting like an outsider now. Does he realize it? Does he see the wall that's been built between the two, reinforced by every day (every minute) apart? "You lived there. I was just... a visitor."

"If I'm going to tell you, you have to sit next to me," Keefe says, letting a grin spring to his face at Fit'z eyeroll. But he does come, sitting far enough away that he wants to scoot closer but knows he's testing his luck. It doesn't matter how he feels, anyway. He's seen how Sophie and Fitz act together. Cognates, he knows, share a trust bond— something he and Fitz do not have. Something they haven't had in a long time.

Keefe puts on a storytelling voice and gestures wide with his hands like he's ready to tell an epic tale, even if it's not that epic at all. "I rode a whale to the top of a mountain, jumped into an active volcano, became the Queen of England, and, most important of all... tried human food!" He drops the fancy voice a moment later. "It's really good, actually. They have this thing, pasta and the gnomes don't grow anything like it. There's a lot of meat everywhere, but it's pretty easy to avoid. Remember the gelato we got that one time?"

Fitz smiles. "Batman shirt. I remember."

Keefe does remember. Remembers with perfect clarity how Fitz looked in his t-shirt with his arms above his head, brown skin lit up in the sun, cool and confident and still flirting with Sophie. But— shit. He'd looked good that day. Biana had laughed at him when he couldn't stop staring. Of course she'd known even then.

"Talking?" Fitz prompts, and he laughs and continues.

"I read—by choice, mind you. They always told us humans are stupid, but they write some cool shit. And the libraries were quiet. Good place to get away from any—" he hesitates— "emotions that didn't belong to me." They were also a good place to write his letters. "There were cafes, too. Like the ones in Atlantis, the cute shop we went to that one time with Biana and Maruca."