KOTLC Sokeefe One-Shots, Alternate Endings, etc

Legacy 19 (Keefe POV)

"You're going to search my dad's memories?" Keefe asked, shaking his head in disbelief when Fitz nodded. "Why?"

Why would he willingly walk into that? He'd been livid when he saw the memory of Keefe's fight with Cassius after his level one midterms, and that was barely scratching the surface. And Fitz had to know that, so why would he subject himself to the anger and frustration that an in-depth study of Cassius Sencen would cause?

Fitz's shrug didn't look quite as casual as he probably wanted it to. "Someone has to."

"Okay, but why you?" When Fitz didn't answer, Keefe turned to his father. "Why not ask whoever you worked with last time? Or Quinlin Sonden? Or Alden? Or Tiergan? Or even Forkle?"

His dad looked perfectly at ease as he smoothed his hair and replied, "young Mr. Vacker has proven to be every bit as powerful as any of them. Perhaps even more so. And he has a much more flexible schedule."

"Yeah, but that's not why you picked him," Keefe argued.

He'd picked Fitz because Fitz was Keefe's best friend. He'd picked Fitz for the sole purpose of humiliating Keefe.

His own son.

Honestly, why was Keefe even surprised anymore?

"It isn't," Keefe heard his dad agreeing happily. "Mind you, the ideal candidate would've been young Miss Foster, but she's always so busy with you."

Keefe legitimately wanted to punch his dad square in the jaw for that. He knew what he was doing. It was the worst thing he could have said in this moment.

One thing Keefe knew he could now always count on was that Ro hated his dad as much as he did. It was a small comfort to him to see her pat the side of her breastplate and say, "Sounds like it's time to bust out my extra fun bacteria buddies. Get ready to lose a lot of body fluids, Lord Snootypants."

"Nah, save 'em for when it'll really be worth it," Keefe told her, stalking over to his father and tilting his head, studying him. "You wanna share all of our family secrets with the Fitzster—you do that. I have nothing to hide."

Let him see what a creep you are. It's not like he doesn't already know.

Fitz knew. He'd observed it on occasion, and Keefe had stopped being quite as careful as he used to be about pretending his home life was happy.

In fact, the only person who knew more than Fitz did about Keefe's suffering was Foster. That didn't mean, however, that Keefe really wanted Fitz to see so much of it firsthand. It would have been nice to keep some of his dignity.

His dad told Fitz he could stay outside a few minutes to talk with his friends before they got to work. Keefe suspected this had way less to do with kindness and more to do with how uncomfortable he knew the three of them currently were.

But Keefe was going to do what he could to salvage this situation, even with this new revelation.

So he let out a long, low whistle. "Wow. Have fun with that, Fitzy."

Foster wasn't happy that Fitz had agreed to this without telling either of them, but Fitz reminded her that he'd been trying and failing to reach her.

Ouch.

Fitz claimed that he had agreed to this in order to help Keefe--both for the sake of recovering any vital information about his mom, and to have someone Keefe trusted inside Keefe's father's mind.

Keefe knew Fitz meant it, and he appreciated that, but also suspected that wasn't the full story.

Foster didn't quite seem to buy it either.