Hah remember when I said updates come out sooner? Hah hah hah

Not really too relevant in this chapter I think, but I just wanted to state that this fanfic has started pre-flashback (dear stars that's a long time), so I won't be adding details from Flashback and after. I might take a few ideas just because, but other than that, no.

Keefe Sencen was bored. It'd been days since he'd pranked someone- not since before he started dating Dex. He was just itching to cause some trouble.

"Should I be worried?" Ro asked. "You've got your 'devious' look on right now."

Keefe shrugged, then schooled his face into one of indifference. He didn't even realize that he'd been smirking (which meant he was doing a horrible job). Ro raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, maybe. I might spare you this ti-"

"Think about messing with me again and I'll bring out the bacteria," she warned, her hand already in her pocket.

"Okay! I won't prank you!"

"Good. Because if that didn't work, I was gonna get your boyfriend."

"Dex loves me too much."

"I'm sure he does, but he wouldn't let you off that easily."

Instead of pouting or frowning like Ro would have expected from him, he grinned. "You weren't there when he used to sneak balding and facial hair elixirs into Stina's food."

"Stina... the curly-haired girl?"

"Ro, you know that hardly narrows it down, right? There's probably hundreds of girls who fit that description at Foxfire."

She huffed. "Brunette in Dex's grade."

His grin grew wider. "I knew you secretly knew everyone's names!"

When Ro first arrived as Keefe's bodyguard, she quickly learned the names of the main group. But when it came to learning the names of the other elves, she was always vague.

"Obviously I can actually remember names. It's part of the job. Also, he did that?"

"He's been in detention a decent amount of times. Not as much as me though."

"Has he?"

He shrugged. "It's not that surprising though? His dad's Kesler, the guy who owns an apothecary that pranks the nobles. He's the brother of the triplets, who probably encourage him all the time."

"True. So you're going through with a prank?"

He nodded. "At the very least, I'll be changing the flavour of the lockers."

"You mean Fitz and Tam's?"

"It's been a while since we pranked them. I'll teach them to not let their guard down. Maybe Stina too."

"I thought she did nothing?" Ro questioned.

"Yeah, I guess," he agreed. "But she was mean to Dex in the past, and insulted him for not having an ability."

"Didn't she manifest after Dex did? And isn't she also the child of a bad match? I don't see why she was mean about it."

"Her family isn't... the nicest," he said, trying very hard to not be mean. "I've met ruder elves, but they're rude."

"I think I can only name four nice Elvin families. Sophie's, Vacker's, your boyfriend's but also Tam and Linh's. They got unofficially adopted by Tiergan, right?"

"Ro, I can't believe you used so many names."

"Shut up!"

•~•~•~•~•~•

Fun fact, but changing the flavours of the school locks wasn't difficult at all. Most people would never attempt to mess with them: in fear of breaking something; not knowing what to do; or getting caught. Or for most elves- all three. But all that was solved with practice and figuring out how to do things beforehand. People would be scared if their lock went missing, which was why Keefe always tested with his own first.

He often liked to make his lock taste like mallowmelt, instead of the weird flavours that Elwin would choose. The other thing was, you could do more than alter the taste. You could also alter the properties by mixing in elixirs. He hadn't done it too often though.

Being efficient with the task was one thing, but the risk of getting caught was still there. The best solution to that was to get to school early, and that way, there would be less mentors around.

He was on his way to Fitz's locker when he saw someone crouched down by the lockers, twirling a pencil absent-mindedly in their hand.

Strange, not too many people come this early.

Upon closer inspection, he noticed that the person had strawberry blond hair- and that it was very clearly Dex.

"What are you doing here?" He asked.

Dex's head jerked towards him, confusion on his face until understanding dawned upon him. "Midterms are next week, so I'm trying to study. The triplets woke up earlier than normal, so I came here for some much needed silence. I assume you're here for pranking reasons?"

"Nothing you can prove."

But Ro rudely decided to expose him. "It's Keefe, what did you expect?"

Dex nodded. "Fair enough. Anyways, I think I need a break, so I'll join you two for now."

"Hmm, you were right," Ro remarked.

Keefe smirked. "When was the last time I was wrong? Actually, don't answer that," he added as he watched both his boyfriend and bodyguard lock eyes and grin.

Dex grabbed his work and put it all in a bag. The bag was light blue, and looked too small to carry everything, but the stuff went in effortlessly.

As if he was able to notice Keefe's stare, he spoke. "The bag shrinks everything to half its size. It's a mess trying to find stuff though."

"Is it like the void?"

He shrugged. "That was the goal. But we barely know how it works, as we just move in and out of it. I don't even know how to start moving the void into my bag."

"That's still impressive. If everything gets smaller, does the weight reduce too?"

"Yeah."

"I could fit so many jars of bacteria in one of those," Ro murmured. "I want one."

"Uh..." Dex began. "They're probably more susceptible to breaking because there's more space. But if that's not a concern, then su-"

"Ask for something in return!" Keefe whispered. "Like a favour or something!"

"Okay, I'll make the bag, but you'll have to do something for me later. It's not going to be stupid or dumb though."

"Oh, I know that," she said. "You're not Keefe."

"Hey!"

•~•~•~•~•~•

After putting the elixirs in Tam and Fitz's lockers, they went to Stina's.

"Voice change and gradual height change," Keefe listed. "What's next?"

"Weren't you the one who decided to do the pranking?" Dex asked. "Anyways, her first class is empathy."

"You memorized her schedule?" Ro asked.

He shrugged. "We've been doing it for years. Sometimes it's to prank each other, but sometimes we do it to avoid each other."

"Empathy, huh?" Keefe mused. "This makes my potential idea even funnier."

"What is it?" Dex watched as Keefe took out a yellow bottle, then rolled his eyes. "Why are you like this?"

"It's not like it does any harm. It doesn't even make her look weird."

"Static electricity. You're going to make her get shocked every time she touches someone. Which happens a lot during empathy."

"So?"

"I think it's a fun idea!" Ro chimed in. "Except that your princi-"

"What is going on here?" A stern voice asked.

The two boys turned around and saw the irritated face of Magnate Leto.

Well, crap! We got caught!

"What are you two doing to the locker?" He pointed to the lock that was still in Keefe's hand.

Oops?

"It was just a prank!"

Yeah, as if that makes things any better.

Magnate Leto kneeled down, and gently pried Keefe's hand off of the lock. "They're not supposed to be tampered with."

"I didn't do anything harm-"

"No, I mean that you aren't supposed to be able to tamper with them."

"Elwin changes them all the time," Dex pointed out.

"He does, but that's not how he does it."

"It's not?" Keefe asked.

"Do you think that he'd have the time to go to each individual locker, choose a flavour and then do this?"

That was a fair point. It'd probably take a long time.

"Dex, was any technopathy involved, or did Keefe do this by himself?"

"I did it by myself," Keefe answered.

"I need you to show me the process. If the locks can be tampered with so easily, a lot could happen. If anyone in the Neverseen knew this, they could slip in sedatives and none of us would know."

Keefe blinked. Was the situation that bad? He thought about it again. If a sedative was slipped in, kidnappings would become even easier. And considering the people who were in the Neverseen... he shuddered. He couldn't allow for that to happen. So he guided Magnate Leto through the steps.

"I'll be seeing how to counteract this problem immediately. Additionally, I must give the both of you detention for three days, since you were messing around with the lockers."

Keefe and Dex looked at each other with similar expressions. Detention was bad, and three days sucked. But the punishment for a deed like this would have normally been larger. They sighed and both agreed, knowing that this was a lax punishment.

"There goes that 'no detention record' of yours," Dex muttered. "Mom's gonna be mad."

"Hopefully my father doesn't hear about it either. It's one thing to be in detention, but if he hears that you were involved, he'll think that you're negatively influencing me or some crap like that."

"You were the one doing the negative influencing," Dex snorted. "I was studying before this."

"I'm not the one who made you join me. You willingly joined me."

"I guess you're right."

"I'm always right."

Keefe ignored the snickers that came from both Dex and Ro.

I've written this AN over the span of a few months its almost illegible but hope I can reword everything

Tbh, idk what this chapter was. I wrote half of it in a day, and this very well might not make any sense. I mean, it's actually kinda important as it sets up the next subplot. Also apparently I forgot this entire subplot in my notes, so we aren't going to section 2 just yet

But my problem is, I really wanna write this subplot, but I'm not sure as to how to do it? Like, I wanna deal with Keefe and his experiences with school, but I feel very incapable, and I don't want to butcher it and come off as insensitive to people who do have school trauma.

Hmm, what I might do is just write some transitional scenes? And if I think of a random scene in between, I can always add it to my oneshots book?

Okay, last thing, but I have an ao3 account now under the same name. All my serious stuff has been going up there. I've also been editing TPT, and updating that on there every Wednesday. Once I catch up, I'll move the edited version on to here.

Happy holidays! Ideally, this break from school should allow me to write some more. If not this, then more oneshots!