KOTLC Oneshots

~Emotions~

Hey guys... I updated! Finally! This one's about when Keefe manifested as an Empath, a request. I think it's just okay. It's about Keefe, with no ship, so there's that... Hope you enjoy!

Keefe couldn't stop the tears running down his cheeks.

He wasn't sad himself, rather feeling the overwhelming amount of emotions around him, and sadness happened to be the strongest emotion in the room right now.

It was interesting, to say the least.

He wiped at his cheeks, blinking, as his best friend pushed his way through the crowd. Fitz grabbed Keefe's shoulder. "Hey, dude. Wow, people sure are noisy- Wait, Keefe, why're you crying?"

Keefe felt the worry and curiosity flow through the single gesture- literally. It really was bizarre, he thought, how his emotions were so sensitive, reacting at a single touch.

"Keefe's crying?" A female voice asked. "Keefe!" Biana gasped, rushing towards him. She fussed over him, grabbing a tissue from her purse- were purses allowed?- and dabbing at his face.

"I'm fine," he told his friends. "I manifested."

The realization dawned on the siblings.

"That's great!" Fitz grinned, clapping him on the back. "I'm guessing you're an Empath, that's why you're crying?"

"Yeah." Keefe smirked. "I can tell if someone has a crush, now!"

Biana smiled uneasily at that, to which Keefe raised an internal eyebrow. He'd have to look in on that later.

Keefe's tears had stopped, the excitement from Fitz now made him want to bounce on the balls of his feet. He looked at his friends. "Time for lunch, you guys go ahead without me. Too many people in one place is, you know, overwhelming?"

Now, he felt bubbling laughter at the back of his throat as a group of girls passed by them. He doubled over, giggling, earning strange looks, and Fitz nodded sympathetically. "Okay, you'll be fine, right?"

"Y-yeah," Keefe managed through his bouts of laughter. He made a shooing motion with his hands, and Biana and Fitz walked off, sending him unsure glances.

Choking on his own saliva, he made his way towards his current ditching spot- a nook behind an unused classroom. It was hidden just out of sight, and almost nobody came here, so he was free to bring his reading books and sketchbooks alike.
Settling into the corner of the space, he felt around for one of his notebooks he had labeled, "memories (and stuff he doesn't know)". Of course, the 'he' was his father, Lord Cassius. Keefe snorted, there was a lot his father didn't know or just wasn't interested in about him, which was why this notebook in particular was filled with sketches and drawings.

He calmed his breaths as he flipped to a new page, grabbing a pencil and focusing on sketching the base for a new drawing. He concentrated on his photographic memory, tongue between his teeth as he shaded the drawing, erasing the rough edges and drawing a smoother line.

He lost track of time as he drew, finally setting the notebook down as he looked at it, satisfied with the result. He stared at the drawing of himself, crying and laughing at the same time as his friends looked at him in worry and the people nearby stared at him strangely.

Another memory. Keefe liked some of his memories, and some not so much. This memory, he liked, he decided. The way his friends were being all concerned and caring, how some people in the drawing were laughing. Though he wasn't sure if he liked his ability all that much; his dad had the same ability. Keefe frowned. He hoped his ability didn't make him more similar to his father, he didn't want to be like his dad at all. More like the opposite.

He ducked out of his ditching spot, hearing the faint chatter of students. Glancing at the time, he was surprised to see he had missed the rest of the school day, it was already time to leave. He wasn't displeased at all, though, he had missed Elvin History, his first Empathy session, and Elementalism. Boring, in his opinion. He was slightly disappointed he had missed Empathy, but he didn't care all that much.

He spotted his friends at the end of the hallway. "Hey, Fitzipoo!" He called, smirking at the slight annoyance he felt from his friend as he neared. He walked the rest of the way into the crowd and immediately regretted it.

The emotions of all the people around him made his head spin. Tears sprang to his eyes, giggles and sobs alternated erupting from his mouth, and anxiety, worry, delight and curiosity swirled inside him like a heavy whirlpool- like the ones he jumped into to get to Atlantis. He crashed into the row of lockers behind him, clutching his head and curling into a crouch. Everything seemed to grow too loud, too much inside him as a thousand emotions sloshed and overflowed in him. He heard an animalistic cry of pain escape his throat, and realized the overwhelming pain wasn't someone else's emotions, but his own.

Distantly, he heard Fitz yell for help, and he thought he saw someone clear out the crowd. He felt something pouring down his throat before everything went still and quiet.

...

Keefe opened his eyes, rubbing at them, and was surprised to see they were wet with tears.

"Hi, Keefe. I see you're awake." A familiar elf spoke, smiling.

"Hey, Elwin." Keefe answered, finding his voice scratchy and hoarse. "Did I black out? Why am I- oh."

The memory of what happened rushed back, and he winced, remembering the pain.

"Yeah, running into crowds right after you trigger your ability isn't recommended." Ewin chided. "I had to give you a calming elixir. It was just enough for you to pass out, you'd already tired yourself out."

Keefe nodded. "Um, can I go, then?" He asked the physician.

"Drink this, and you'll be free to go." Elwin handed Keefe a vial of a frothy blue liquid. "Try not to ditch your next Empathy session, by the way," He told Keefe good-naturedly. "If you had gone to it today, you would have known how to deal with too much emotion."

Keefe shrugged, letting a hint of a smirk break through. "But I had Elwin the Amazing as backup, so that went fine."

Elwin sighed. "Drink that up, and I'll let you go."

Keefe uncorked the vial, gagging at the smell. "What even is this?" He asked.

"Well, it's a soothing elixir to temporarily numb your emotional senses. The main ingredient is Unicorn-"

"I didn't ask you to tell me the ingredients!" Keefe yelped.

"You actually sort of did, but I'll let this one slide." Elwin grinned.

Keefe pinched his nose and gulped down the blue liquid, muttering "Never again.".

Elwin gave him what Keefe recognized as a bottle of Youth, which he thankfully drank, washing down the unpleasant taste.

"You can go now," Elwin told Keefe. "Be careful!" He added, waving as Keefe hopped off the cot he was on and ran out of the Healing Center with a wave.

Fitz and Biana were waiting in front, and they showered him with worry and questions, to which Keefe found didn't affect him as much as before, due to the elixir Elwin had made him drink.

"You should've thought better than to run into a crowd!" Biana scolded gently. "You could've gotten even more hurt!"

"I'm fine, but glad to see you care about me that much!" He smirked as they walked down an empty hall towards the leapmaster.

"Of course we care about you, Keefe." Fitz said, sounding unusually sincere. "No matter how much you prank and annoy and disrupt an distract us and-"

Keefe slapped his arm, feeling a weakened throb of amusement from his friend. "Yeah, I get it." He spoke with a grin. As an afterthought, he added, "I love you guys, too."

So, what do you think? Was it okay? Tell me in the comments!