(Also at the time, this had 111 reads and 111 is the number of KEEFEX! *squeals* Okay okay go read)

Dex woke up to the feeling of the triplets on top of him. It took a few moments to remember that he wasn't in Rimeshire though, but in Everglen. Meaning that whoever was on top of him was not one of the triplets. He opened his eyes and saw blond hair resting on his chest, and he nearly sprang up in shock. Even more so when he realized that his arm was wrapped around the body.

Why... why am I hugging Keefe?

Carefully, he sat up, making sure that Keefe would stay comfortable. His face was lacking the usual grin, looking entirely calm and peaceful. The expression on his face was almost angelic. The messy state of his hair only added to that effect.

He exhaled, and then realized what he'd been doing.

What am I doing? Why did I stare at him like that?

He rubbed his eyes to properly wake himself up, and gently lifted Keefe's head off of him. Then he went and freshened himself up.

•~•~•~•~•~•

"Keefe? Keefe. Keefe, wake up!" Dex whisper-yelled, gently shaking the boy awake.

"Why?" Keefe mumbled, rolling over. "It's way too early for this."

"Ta- Bangs Boy is about to do his hair!" Dex said excitedly.

Keefe sat up. "And now I'm awake!" He got up as they headed out of the room.

He looked outside and saw that Fitz walked into a second washroom, a bottle of hair gel in hand.

"Ooh, both of them at once!" Keefe smirked, rubbing his hands together.

Dex held up a hand, counting backwards with his fingers. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1...

"Keefe Sencen!" Tam yelled.

"Dex!" Fitz hollered.

"What was that for!?" They both screamed in unison, storming over to where the pranking duo was.

"For the record Bangs Boy, I wasn't the one who messed with your hair," Keefe stated.

"And I didn't prank you Wonderboy," Dex said.

"Keefe," Fitz groaned, rubbing his face with his hand. "You pranked me, didn't you?"

"Of course! Who else would prank you other than the master prankster himself?"

Tam rolled his eyes and turned to face Dex. "Let me guess? You pranked me? But why, I don't see why you'd have a grudge against me."

It's a little petty, and something completely out of your control.

But instead, Dex decided to joke around. "If Keefe gets to prank Wonderboy, who else would I get to prank?"

The two boys who had gotten pranked left the room, probably to go get the stickiness out of their hair.

"That was amazing!" Keefe grinned. "Their reactions were priceless!"

Keefe raised his hand, and Dex gave him a high five. Dex went downstairs, while Keefe went to clean his teeth. It was quiet when they ate breakfast, mostly due to the fact that Tam and Fitz were glaring at them.

"Nice hair," Biana teased. "Doesn't smell too good though."

"You two are just sulking," Sophie pointed out. "Cheer up."

"What even happened?" Linh asked.

"They got pranked," Keefe explained.

Dex laughed and agreed.

"Should've figured that it was your fault." Biana stood up from her chair.

"It was Dex," said Tam. "He caused this. Go get him."

When Biana started running towards him, he knew he had to run. It didn't take long for her to catch up and tackle him to the ground. Then they were all laughing, the atmosphere of the room considerably lighter. Well, except in Dex's case.

Ignore the proximity. Ignore it. Ign-

Biana got off of him, and he nearly sighed in relief.

"Hey Soph?" Fitz asked. "Keefe messed up my hair, can you get him too?"

Keefe crossed his arms, a smug expression on his face. "Foster would never d-"

He was cut off by his own yelp, as Sophie had gone up to him and pushed him off of his chair.

"How could you do this?" He whined. "This is betrayal!"

Alden and Della walked in. "Keefe, Dex, the smell isn't really pleasant, can you deal with it?" Alden asked.

"That gets rid of half the fun!" Keefe protested.

"Don't you think it's 'fun' enough that my hair's so sticky?" Fitz asked. "It's annoying when I accidentally run my hand through my hair and then... ew. So Keefe, may you spare me from having my hair stink too?"

"It does stink," Dex agreed.

"Bu-"

Dex gave him a smile, hoping that his message would be conveyed in that one look. Keefe nodded, and then left the room. A few minutes later, he came back, a peck of orange powder in hand.

Dex bit his lip in an attempt to keep himself from bursting into laughter. He knew Keefe would get something that would somewhat make it better, but this was very visible. He watched as Tam and Fitz took the powder and put it in their hair. After a minute, the dark hair upon their heads turned bright orange.

"My bangs!" Tam wailed. "Really?"

The duo laughed. "Are you crying over this?"

Both Fitz and Sophie scoffed at Keefe. "As if you haven't done the same thing."

Keefe gasped, before setting a finger on his lip. "Shh, we don't speak about that. Oh, and you're gonna want an explanation, right? This is the only thing that reverses the scent effect. Right Dex?"

"Yep!" Dex lied. There was actually a second item that could do the same thing, with less side effects. "Personally, I'd prefer the orange. It behaves weirdly with the hair dyes, so I wouldn't suggest dyeing it. Besides, both of the effects should wear off after a day."

"But there's Foxfire tomorrow!" Tam and Fitz yelled. Then they left the room.

After that, the others burst into laughter.

"You lied, didn't you?" Biana asked.

Keefe put up his hands. "Guilty."

"But not the entire thing," Dex added. "The time limit would have been the same regardless of the situation. And the hair dyes really would mess it up further."

"But there wasn't a need to make their hair orange?" Sophie guessed.

"Yeah."

"Keefe! Dex!" Linh scolded. "As funny as the entire situation is, didn't you think that it was a little too much?"

The both of them shrugged. They continued to eat their breakfast, most of them eating neatly. Except Keefe. There was food all over his face, and unsurprisingly, there was none in his hair. It was almost adorable, actually. He was kinda cute an- what did I just think about?

He'd been fiddling with an indigoober in his hands. Only half-thinking, he threw the food at Keefe.

"Dex!" Keefe screamed. "This means war!"

With that, a food war had begun. The two of them tossed their food at each other. The others were caught in the crossfire, so they began to join in too. They were making a mess and laughing until they realized how big of a mess they had made.

"We're ba- we were gone for like five minutes. What happened?" Fitz laughed. "Looks like I'm not the only mess."

Dex smiled at that statement, before asking the others to help him clean up the mess that he'd started.

"Wait, it wasn't Keefe who started it?" Tam asked. "That's a first."

The group started their cleanup, while Tam and Fitz stood aside, since they had just showered and had nothing to do with it. After cleaning up, Dex took a shower and then went to look for the others. He found Keefe and Tam talking in one of the rooms.

"If you were awake the entire time, then how come you got pranked?" Keefe asked.

Tam grumbled. "Dex was smart enough to not dump everything in one bottle."

Hearing that his name had been called, he decided to walk in. "Thought he might get suspicious. Good idea, wasn't it?"

"Yeah yeah," Tam mumbled. "What's going on between you two?"

"I told you Bangs Boy, he was just giving me a massage. He told me he did that with Lex. That's like saying he's interested in his own brother!" Keefe yelled, annoyance clear in his tone.

They all cringed at that last sentence.

"Okay, that got weird."

"It did," Tam agreed. "Okay, but you fell asleep. Do you even know what happened after?"

From what he was hearing from this conversation, Tam was inquiring about the previous night. A few brief images flashed through his mind, and his face went red.

"That's uh... none of your business!"

"So there is some-"

"I put Keefe to sleep. I hardly remember anything else. Just leave the matter alone."

All I remember was running my hand through his soft hair. I was... calm? And I did wake up with his head on my chest and I was hugging him. When would that have happened? Ah- snap out of it! I'm so glad that Keefe can't sense my emotions right now, because this is embarrassing!

"Okay," Tam conceded, before leaving them alone.

The silence was awkward, so Dex decided to speak up.

"You can still come to me if you need help sleeping," Dex offered. "We can just forget that this conversation even happened."

"Yeah, we don't need whatever this is to ruin our friendship."

Dex nodded, but there was something about that sentence that made his heart ache briefly. But he shrugged it off. Keefe's imparter rang, and Dex left so he could talk to his dad in private. Keefe came and said that he had to leave, so he left Everglen.

There, hope that satisfies you for now. Not sure when the next chapter'll come out because school is starting soon and I have to do stuff like shopping.